The people of Cnidus differed from their brothers of Cos. As Pliny suggests, their acceptance of the statue made their island famous. The marble was placed in the centre of a grove of myrtle, and was approached by several paths so that it could be viewed from every side. The Vatican replica of the Aphrodite is the best known copy of the work. It is, however, at present disfigured by the addition of metal drapery which the taste of the last century considered necessary. The Praxitelean design can be realised from the copy at the Glyptothek, Munich, originally in the Palace Braschi. There is also an undraped cast of the Vatican statue in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Our own illustration is from a photo of the Vatican copy taken for the Hellenic Society many years ago. To the people of Cnidus, the statue was not marble white. The eyes and hair of the goddess were coloured. The drapery and the flesh were delicately tinted. In exactly what manner this was done, we do not know. That such statues were painted is beyond argument. Pliny tells that the painter Nicias assisted Praxiteles. He suggests that the sculptor considered the encaustic additions of prime importance and necessitating the greatest skill. Whatever the purpose of this colouring of statues may have been, it is certain that there was no effort to secure greater realism by this addition. The desire seems to have been to soften the harsher tones of the marble and to increase the decorative effect of the statue by distinguishing the principal masses of the composition. For hundreds of years after it was set up in the myrtle grove in Cnidus, the “Aphrodite” was the most renowned statue in Western Europe. This can only be attributed to the exquisite sense of artistic fitness with which Praxiteles carried out his task, together with the fact that he had enshrined in marble one of the ever potent human passions. Phryne had been Praxiteles’ model. But the statue was by no means a realistic presentation of the erotic beauties of the Hetaera. No fault can be found with Praxiteles’ treatment of his theme on that ground. [Illustration: APHRODITE OF CNIDUS Vatican, Rome] Nevertheless the representation of a goddess in the guise of a woman shrinking from the revelation of her beauty to mankind argues the loss of a certain morality. True, the Greek sculptor had never aimed at the inculcation of moral ideas. But in an age before the religious sense of the Greek had become dulled, he would have confined himself to the creation of an atmosphere in which moral ideas could range without friction. The “Aphrodite of Cnidus” belongs to a time which made no such demand upon its artists. The sculptor no longer believed that he owed a duty to the state in this particular respect. Every work now stood or fell by virtue of its innate truth and beauty.