The work was realized as compensation for the transfer to France of the Venus de Medici, raked by the Napoleonic. To this work the sculptor was inspired ideally, at a more spiritual level, trying to evoke the tenderness of the flesh, its sweet vibrating, the movement in space, which makes it through the free articulation of the body and the delicacy of the nuances.
The sculptor spread a soft and pink mixture to better enhance the beauty of the body of the goddess, in the act of hiding behind a cloth, probably surprised by the arrival of someone, according to the classic theme of Venus pudica.
Ugo Foscolo will make a comparison between the two works, that of Canova and the old, and will say the first: "Lusinga paradise in this valley of tears", wanting to express with these words the superiority of the statue of the neoclassical sculptor, this most real goddess , therefore more desirable.
Notice how even in this work there is a willing adherence to the theories of the German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann: the search for the beautiful ideal, the distance from the upheaval of passions and emotions, are present only the "noble simplicity and quiet greatness ".