Venus in a gold bikini

The museum of ancient Eleutherna Welcomes ‘Venus in a Gold Bikini’

Found in Pompeii among other ancient artwork in 1954, “Venus in a gold bikini” is made by white marble enriched with golden decoration alluding to the “golden Aphrodite” of the Homeric hymn: Iliad book 9, 389, “not though she vied in beauty with golden Aphrodite…”.

“…The statuette was found alongside other ancient artwork in 1954 in the so called ever since ‘House of Venus in bikini’ in Pompeii and kept in the “Secret Cabinet” of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, due to its exquisite quality, the rarity of its decorative elements and its strong erotic aura…”

“…The marble’s whiteness that glows towards the light (the verb used in ancient greek to denote the glowing of light, is the same verb that produces the noun marble) and admirably becomes the golden decoration of her body, creating an impression of a snowhite, soft skin, inviting and challenging you to touch it…”

“…Under the goddesses’ nose’s chambers there lay the relatively small, diverted on the upper part lips, which have an erasmian austerity, creating a sensation that the goddess lays on a heavenly sphere, in contradiction to the one created by the “dressed” nudity and the rippling of her body’s white flesh, the well-shaped abdominal area and the young Priapus’s erection. As a whole it seems to hover between the heavenly and the pandemos (common to all the people) erotic sphere of the goddess and the golden decoration of her body alludes to the “golden Aphrodite” of the Homeric hymn: Iliad book 9, 389: not though she vied in beauty with golden Aphrodite…”.

Celebrating female beauty, the statuette’s exhibition will run until July 30 2023