Aphrodite

The Aphrodite passed from the Cavaceppi workshop to the Torlonia family and from their palace in Piazza Venezia to the Villa on Via Nomentana, where it was placed at the centre of the first niche on the left of the False Ruins.
Created by the assembly of two fragments, it seems during the statue’s restoration Cavaceppi may have modified its iconography, altering it to resemble a nymph, by changing the position of the arms and adding a shell between her hands so that the figure might more readily be placed in a fountain. The transformation of statues of Aphrodite into nymphs was common in antiquity.
The Torlonia Venus can be attributed to copyists of the Flavian and Hadrian age due to the style and details of a series of sculptures of this period: the movement of the drapery (in which drill furrows can be seen), the very noticeable navel, the very evident cleavage between the buttocks, and the roundness and softness of the nude parts.
Execution is attributed to the workshop in Thasos, which, if confirmed, could represent a significant discovery regarding the creation of female nudes apart from Praxiteles’ Aphrodite Cnidia.
This type of sculpture was very sought after in the eighteenth century to provide decoration in villas.