Venus

Last week the Ferargil Galleries offered for sale a statuet of Venus which has been kept obscure for many years in the gallery of a Manhattan collector. It is the work, experts say, of Praxiteles*--a figure twelve inches high representing the goddess rising from a broken wave. The arms, beautifully modeled, are intact; the legs are gone below the thighs; the lovely, epicene face is turned toward the shoulder. Was Phryne the model? Was the pose inspired by the famous painting by Appeles? All that is known is that a peasant dug it up in a brown field near Benghasi in 1902. Ferargil prices it at $125,000.

*Only one original of Praxiteles, the Hermes, can be positively identified, but the manner is well known.