greece - Aphrodite

This is Aphrodite, a goddess of beauty, love, fertility, and, well, reproduction. Since she can be a bit vain, I had her depicted with lots of jewelry and a bit more liberal dressing. At least she is dressed at all; ancient statues of Aphrodite are mostly nude. I like that the maker gives the possibility to put an apple into her hand; there's a nice little tale about a wedding where the goddess of discord, Eris, was not invited, so, angrily, she threw a golden apple to the celebration, written on it "to the most beautiful". Athena, Hera and Aphrodite fought about the apple and demanded that Zeus declared one of them the most beautiful - Zeus handed that task over to Paris, a human prince. Each of the goddesses promised him something in return for declaring her the superior beauty; Aphrodite promised, if Paris would declare her the most beautiful goddess, he should have the love of the most beautiful human woman. Paris did, Aphrodite got the golden apple - and a certain beauty named Helena fell for Prince Paris of Troy. And then war... oops, not such a nice tale after all.