The statue’s subject and pose is an often-copied one, with similar version appearing in famous paintings and sculpture gardens in Europe and beyond for centuries. The statue itself is thought to be based on an earlier Aphrodite sculpture in marble by the ancient Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. However, the direct progenitor of the Venus de Medici was made of the more lightweight bronze.

The famous mask of Agamemnon (c. 1500s BCE) was discovered in Mycenae in the 1800s. While early discoverers thought the mask belonged to the Greek King Agamemnon (see Homer’s Iliad and Aeschylus’s Oresteia), later scholarship revealed that the mask actually predated the historical Agamemnon by centuries. The Mycenaean civilization predated the Archaic era and was itself predated by the Minoan civilization.

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This statue, the Augustus of Prima Porta, is a classic Roman sculpture of the Emperor Augustus Caesar. Carved in marble, the statue presents Augustus in the armor of Roman General, but posed and shaped in a way as to evoke the Roman gods. The Romans had a belief that the Caesars became gods upon their death, a belief fostered by the construction of temples by their successors.

Image accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue-Augustus.jpg

The Discobolus of Myron depicts a nude male discus thrower poised in the act of hurling the discus. With his head bent down, his knees bent, and his throwing arm extended behind him, the figure is frozen in a dynamic, athletic posture. Unlike later Greek art, Early Classical sculpture was concerned with portraying ideal human form, and the youthful male nude was considered the most beautiful of all the human forms.

From the Archaic period on, many ancient Greek bronze statues were created using the complex, multi-step lost-wax casting process. In this process, a series of molds are created using wax and clay and molten bronze is poured into the final set of molds. This technique continues to be used today, and it often allows for greater creativity than earlier sculpting methods.

(Image taken from the public domain: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Reggio\_calabria\_museo\_nazionale\_bronzi\_di\_riace.jpg)

The Venus de Milo displayed in Paris’s Louvre museum is famously missing its original marble arms and plinth. It’s also missing the polychromatic paint and gold or silver jewelry that would have adorned it. A cartouche, on the other hand, is an oval engraving containing hieroglyphs that spell out a person’s name, and it is specific to the art of ancient Egypt.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus\_de\_Milo\_Louvre\_Ma399\_n2.jpg

The Siren Vase is a type of vessel known as stamnos and is decorated with red and black images. One of the most famous examples of ancient Greek pottery, the Siren Vase (c. 475 BCE) depicts the hero Odysseus battling sirens, enchanting female creatures who lured sailors to their deaths with hypnotic songs. This hero appears in the Homeric epics The Odyssey and The Iliad; none of the other authors were ancient Greek writers.

Like the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace (c. 190 BCE) is a work that came at the pinnacle of the Hellenistic era. As was customary in this era, the statue depicts a female goddess designed to be visually pleasing regardless of what angle it was viewed from (shown in the round). The Winged Victory of Samothrace also exhibits an elaborate draping of clothing (another hallmark of Hellenistic sculpture); in this case, the clothing looks as if it is being blown by a strong breeze.

This sculpture, the Venus Braschi by Praxiteles, is a textbook example of the Classical period of Ancient Greek sculpture. The subject is calm, and has her weight shifted onto one foot, which is commonly seen in other sculptures of the same period. The sculpture has realistic, yet idealized proportions and body shape. It is also made of marble, which was not used for sculptures during the Archaic period.

The Hellenistic period consisted of a lot of movement, emotion and dynamism. As this sculpture's subject is a calm, idealized, very symmetrical female, this would not be a good representation of Hellenistic sculpture.

The Riace Warriors are an excellent example of Early Classical sculpture. Their use of contrapposto and their slightly idealized forms distinguish them from earlier Archaic work, as do their elaborately worked beards and hair. Their makers are unknown, and the statues are thought to have been buried underwater after a shipwreck of uncertain date.

(Image taken from the public domain: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Reggio\_calabria\_museo\_nazionale\_bronzi\_di\_riace.jpg)