Antonio Canova was a famous neoclassical sculptor. He worked in Italy and France, during Napoleone’s reign. Here he represents Napoleone’s sister, Paolina Bonaparte, laying some kind of triclinium. She had married the Roman prince Camillo Borghese and so she took the name of Paolina Borghese. She was considered of exceptional beauty, but also fierce and exuberant. She posed nude for the sculptor: a very unusual thing. Reviving the ancient Roman artistic traditions of portrayals of mortal individuals in the guise of the gods, she was represented as Aphrodite. She holds an apple evoking Aphrodite's victory in the Judgement of Paris: in which the most beautiful goddess would win a gold apple.
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