Venus in a Bikini

The statuette is depicting the deity in the moment immediately before the bath, with a hand in the process of unfastening a sandal , owes its name to the presence of a golden stróphion that wrapped her breast, crossed her belly, and finally enveloped her hips. Iconographically identified with type IX by Schmidt,  this Venus has as its archetype the Aphrodite Doidalsas. A fitting and immediate comparison, although it differs in the rendering of the lateral support, is the statuette of Aphrodite untying her sandal (Oplontis Museum, Inv. 1252), from Villa A, the so-called Villa of Poppaea.