Goddess Venus Figure. Ancient Roman, 1st-2nd century AD. Marble 12.8 cm height. CONDITION: Fragment in good condition. PROVENANCE: Private collection, Miklos Bokor (Budapest, 1927 - Paris, 2019), Paris, France. Miklos Bokor was a French-Hungarian painter and essayist born in Budapest on 2 March 1927 and died in Paris on 18 March 2019. Miklos Bokor was deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp with his entire family in 1944. After his mother's death, he was transferred to Buchenwald, Rhemsdorf, Tröglitz and Kleinau with his father, who disappeared in Bergen-Belsen. After his liberation in 1945, he was repatriated to Budapest by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. After a first private exhibition in Budapest in 1953, Miklos Bokor remained in Paris and settled permanently in France in 1960. At the Janine Hoa gallery, which presented his paintings in 1962, he became friends with the poets Yves Bonnefoy and André du Bouchet, who later became regular prologues for his exhibitions. For more than 40 years he had a studio at La Ruche, the famous artists' residence in Paris. Boklor's art was inspired by his experiences in the Holocaust and his work reflects the horror of extermination. He once described this impact on his work as follows: 'In Auschwitz something happened that lurks in society like a breach, a wound that does not heal. Returning from death, one who has lived in his flesh and spirit the experience of dehumanisation begins to paint the unspeakable. Much of Boklor's work is in the collections of the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris. As an artist he was interested in other painters as well as in cultures that predated the civilisation that triggered such a terrible situation. He built up a large collection of archaeological objects, focusing mainly on the Near East and the birth of civilisation on the banks of the Euphrates. DESCRIPTION: Aphrodite was the Greek goddess of beauty, love, fertility, and she embodied the primordial forces of Creation. From the 3rd century BC. She will be identified by the Romans with Venus, a local divinity related to the same powers. The goddess, according to Hesiod, was born from the foam—the sperm—that originated in the sea around the severed genitals of Uranus. At the origins of the universe, Uranus (Heaven) joined Gaea (Earth), begetting various children, but for fear that they would dethrone him, he kept them locked in the womb of his mother. Cronus, fed up with this situation, seized power by castrating his father and throwing his wife into the sea: «Out of the foam and in the midst of it a maiden was born. She first sailed towards the divine Cythera and from there she then went to Cyprus... she The august and beautiful goddess came out of the sea, and under her delicate feet the grass grew around her [...]. She was accompanied by Eros and followed by the beautiful Himerus at first when she was born, and then on her march towards the tribe of the gods. And these powers he possesses [...]: intimacies with maidens, smiles, deceptions, sweet pleasure, love and sweetness. Notes: - The piece includes authenticity certificate. - The piece includes Spanish Export License. - The seller guarantees that he acquired this piece according to all national and international laws related to the ownership of cultural property. Provenance statement seen by Catawiki.