Praxiteles, one of the greatest of all sculptors, created the Aphrodite in about 350 BC.

The people of Kos purchased the clothed figure and those of Cnidus obtained the nude. The Cnidians placed their statue in a small temple by the sea and in antique times it came to be known as the most beautiful in the world. The original has been lost, but forty-nine copies have come down to us. One is to be seen in the Vatican Museum.

The image of the goddess was so human that it became the ideal; for years to come there was not a single Aphrodite that differed greatly from that created by Praxiteles.

Source:http://www.murrayco.com