Female statue

In Greek mythology, Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was born from the foam of the sea near the island of Cyprus. This female statue from Cyprus may well have been intended to represent the goddess, or possibly a woman making offerings to the goddess, or a priestess. She wears a strikingly large amount of jewellery. Her necklace is particularly rich, being composed of several strands of semiprecious stones (pearls?). In her left hand, the woman holds a flower between her pronounced breasts. The figure was made in the ‘Archaic’ style, a term used for the rigid, impersonal art of the earliest period in Greece.