The Capitoline Venus is a Roman copy of a lost Greek original ultimately associated with Praxiteles.
The statue represents Venus, the Roman counterpart of Aphrodite, in the Venus Pudica—or “modest Venus”—type. She stands after bathing, using her hands to cover her breasts and groin. This gesture distinguishes the Capitoline type from related images such as the Venus de’ Medici.
The surviving marble statue is an Antonine-period Roman copy of a late Hellenistic sculpture, probably dating from the 3rd or 2nd century BC. That Hellenistic work adapted the artistic tradition of Praxiteles, whose famous Aphrodite of Cnidus transformed the depiction of the nude goddess. Thus, “by Praxiteles” identifies the ultimate Greek artistic source, not necessarily the Roman copyist or the immediate Hellenistic model.
Found on Rome’s Viminal Hill, the statue entered the Capitoline Museums in 1752. Its attribution is sometimes described cautiously because the original Greek work is lost and the chain of copies is reconstructed from style and comparison.