The original Aphrodite statue was created for the Temple of Aphrodite at Knidos as a devotion monument. It represented the Goddess as she proceeded for the ceremonial bath that regenerated her pureness.
Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most prominent sculptor in Attica during the fourth century BC. He was the first to build a life-size statue of a naked woman.
Praxiteles’ subjects were either humans or dignified and less aged deities like Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite instead of Zeus, Poseidon, or Themis. Praxiteles and his pupils nearly completely worked with Parian marble.
Praxiteles’ original Aphrodite statue has long been lost; one tale has it that it was finally transferred to Constantinople, where it was ruined in a blaze in the 5th century CE.
The Aphrodite sculpture was heralded as a breakthrough in artwork in antiquity because it was the first full nude sculpture among Greek and female Roman statues following millennia of sculptures of women.