‘Afrodite che si toglie il sandalo’: una sequenza di copie in piccolo formato

The subject of Aphrodite removing her sandal is one of the most popular representations of the bathing goddess of post-Praxitelean tradition, repeated in hundreds of sculptures from the late Hellenistic age through the imperial period. Similarities in terms of composition and proportions seen in a group of small marble statues of this subject type are such as to make evident the recourse to mechanical methods of imitation from a common model, according to practices normally associated with statuary of a larger size. Found in various regions of the Mediterranean, although probably produced in the Aegean area between the end of the 2nd century BC and the first half of the following century, these objects are distinguished by the particular quality of the material used, the complex arrangement of the goddess’s pose, and the insertion of figurative supports capable of individualizing each example. Debunking the established idea of the absence of true ‘replicas’ among the examples of ‘Aphrodite removing her sandal’, the identification of this series of copies contributes to filling out in a new and more complex way the previously known picture of the circulation of one of the most widespread motifs in small-scale ancient sculpture.