Focus on Esquiline Venus and analyze the In modern art.
The sculpture inspired many artistic reconstructions in the decade after its discovery.  Chief among these are Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's A Sculptor's Model (1877) and Edward Poynter's  Diadumene (1884).  These both portrayed the statue's model binding her hair with a strip of fabric (as with the statue type diadumenos) in preparation for modelling for the sculptor or for taking a bath respectively.  Poynter believed this to be the correct reconstruction partly because the remains of the little finger of her left hand are visible on the back of her head, suggesting that her left arm was raised to hold her hair in place, whilst the right hand wound the fabric.  At the Museo Centrale Montemartini, the Esquiline Venus is now usually displayed behind a 'pool' (actually a glass floor panel) in tribute to this rendering.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema right diadumenos Alma-Tadema Edward Poynter Museo Centrale Montemartini left Venus