Callipygian Venus – Sculpture in La Serena

The sculpture installed in La Serena belongs unmistakably to the Callipygian Venus type: a standing female figure lifts her garment to uncover her back and hips while turning her head towards her own body. The epithet derives from the Greek Kallipygos, usually translated as 'of the beautiful buttocks'. The gesture and the contrast between exposed anatomy and dense drapery are characteristic of a composition associated with the early Hellenistic tradition.

The direct reference for the modern replicas is the marble in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN, inv. 6020), a Roman work generally dated to the late 1st century BCE after a lost Hellenistic prototype traditionally placed around 300 BCE. Neither the maker of the prototype nor the sculptor of the Roman marble is known. The Neapolitan statue is also the result of extensive modern restoration. A 16th-century intervention supplied a missing head and established the backward-looking pose. In 1786 Carlo Albacini restored or replaced major parts, including the head and limbs, while preserving that visual solution. Replicas based on the Farnese statue therefore reproduce a composite image formed by an ancient body and modern restorations.

Athenaeus of Naucratis recounts in the Deipnosophistae a story about two sisters whose beauty contest led to the dedication of a sanctuary to Aphrodite Kallipygos in Syracuse. The tale explains the cult epithet in later literary tradition, but it is not historical evidence for the creation of the sculptural prototype. It should therefore be understood as part of the reception of the name, not as the documented origin of the statue.

The historical acquisition record describes the La Serena work as an 'ancient copy' in white statuary marble after the original in the National Museum of Naples. It was purchased in Rome from the Cesare della Seta Gallery on Via del Babuino through the efforts of Raúl Irarrázaval, Chilean ambassador to the Holy See, and adviser Antonio Rodríguez. The available documentation does not identify the person or workshop that carved it, its exact date of production or its earlier chain of ownership. It was shipped from Italy through the port of Coquimbo and installed in the open-air museum on Avenida Francisco de Aguirre, inaugurated on 31 October 1952.