Aphrodite Holding Mirror and Apple

1st century BCE · Sculpture

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Harvard Art Museums

Cambridge, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 9 days ago
In this state since: Sep 27, 2026
Source: The museum

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About the sculpture

Aphrodite holds a mirror in her right hand and a spherical object, probably an apple, in her left. Aphrodite is nude except for a flowered diadem around her head; small holes in the center of the three rosettes may indicate that there were once inlays of another material in them. Her wavy hair, parted in the center, is pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, and there are also rolls of hair on the sides of her head. Her head is turned down and to the right, looking into the mirror, which is circular and has a long handle with a molded finial. Her face is naturalistically modeled: the eyes are indicated by circular punches, and the lobes of the ears appear under the rolls of hair on the sides of her head. Her arms are held away from the body but are bent at the elbows and raised. The fingers of both hands are very carefully modeled and separated, with the nails also rendered.

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Her body, rendered naturalistically with soft, round limbs, forms a strong S-curve. Her right hip juts out sharply, with her right leg locked and her left leg bent at the knee, foot pulled back, with only the toes in contact with the top of the base. Her thighs are pressed together and are joined in the metal down to the knees. The toes on both feet are clearly rendered but not separated. The statuette is modeled completely in the round.

The statuette was not originally paired with this base, and the bolt connecting them is modern. It has a simple bell-shape with sharply scooped sides, and it is hollow on the underside. Some simple moldings are rendered on the top and bottom. Brown corrosion on the top of the base may indicate where an ancient statuette may have originally attached to this base, if the base itself is ancient (1).

This statuette, which is identified as the goddess of love and beauty based on her nudity and accoutrements, represents the goddess at her toilet, as indicated by the mirror (2). It could be considered a variant of the type known as Aphrodite Pselioumene, after a sculpture by Praxiteles, but in this case, the goddess holds a mirror and apple instead of a necklace (3).

NOTES:

1. For a discussion of the antiquity of the base, see the Technical Observations.

2. Compare the marble Aphrodite from Arles in the Louvre, Paris, inv. no. MA 439, holding an apple in one hand and looking down into a mirror (disc missing) in the other; see Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae Aphrodite no. 526. For Aphrodite at her toilette, see A. Delivorrias, “Aphrodite. 7: Aphrodite bei der Toilette,” in LIMC 2.1: 59-61, nos. 482-97, esp. 494-96.

3. See M.-O. Jentel, “Aphrodite (in peripheria orientali),” in LIMC 2.1: 154-66, esp. 166. The Harvard statuette is grouped into the “eastern periphery” due to its stated findspot in the publication of the de Clercq collection as Amrit, Syria (ancient Marathos) on the Mediterranean coast (abandoned in the second century BCE); see A. de Ridder, Catalogue de la collection de Clercq 3: Les bronzes (Paris, 1905) 82, no. 115. Other similar statuettes of Aphrodite with a mirror and apple in the de Clercq collection, current locations unknown and not published with pictures, were also said to have been acquired at the same time and location; ibid., 82-83, nos. 116 and 118. Dozens of Aphrodite statuettes of different types in the de Clercq collection were also said to have been from Amrit or neighboring Tartus (ancient Antarados).

Lisa M. Anderson

Harvard Art Museums