We cannot quote from the period before Pheidias any great monument that presented the inner character of the goddess by means of spiritual expression in the face or whole form. It would be tempting to take as a masterpiece of the religious sculpture of this period the Sosandra of Calamis, the greatest master before Pheidias in this field of work, and to call it Aphrodite. But reasons have been adduced against this interpretation. A beautiful bronze, of the pre- Pheidian style, has been recently acquired by M. Caraponos and published in the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique under the name of Aphrodite. A female figure of tall slim maidenly form stands holding a dove in her left hand and in her right hand some object that has disappeared but was probably a flower; the face is very earnest, and free from all sentiment, so far as one can judge from the photograph. The nobility and purity of the work, its naive unconscious grace, would give it an important place and an original value among Aphrodite-monuments, if the name were sure. A religious dedication of some kind it is undoubtedly, and the drapery with the folds of the chiton ποδήρης and its arrangement of the upper mantle strikingly recalls the Vesta Giustiniani; the symbols also are appropriate to Aphrodite. But no certain representation of this period shows us an Aphrodite of these virginal forms, these half-developed features, and this girlish simplicity in the arrangement of the hair.