It is sometimes said to have been found in the ruins of Emperor Nero's Domus Aurea, though this is unlikely, as fragments uncovered there contained no evidence of high-quality works of art such as the Venus.

The restorer decided to have the figure look over her shoulder at her own buttocks, a choice that gave the Venus its distinctive pose and had a significant effect on later interpretations of the work.

Responding to contemporary criticisms of some of the statue's features, Albacini replaced the head, the arms, and one leg; he followed the previous restoration fairly faithfully in having the figure look back over her shoulder.

[10] The restorers' decision to have the figure look over her back greatly affected subsequent interpretations, to the point that the classicists Mary Beard and J. G. W. Henderson describe it as having "created a 'masterpiece' in place of a fragment".

[6] The restoration recalled in the minds of viewers a story recorded in Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae about the founding of a temple of "Aphrodite Kallipygos" in ancient Syracuse, Sicily.

[11] In 1836, Famin [fr] called it a "charming statuette" but noted that it was "placed in a reserved hall, where the curious are only introduced under the surveillance of a guardian, though even this precaution has not prevented the rounded forms which won for the goddess the name of Callipyge, from being covered with a dark tint, which betrays the profane kisses that fanatic admirers have every day impressed there.

We ourselves knew a young German tourist smitten with a mad passion for this voluptuous marble; and the commiseration his state of mind inspired set aside all idea of ridicule.

It was sent to Versailles, then to Marly-le-Roi in 1695, where it was provided with additional marble draperies by Jean Thierry, not to offend an increasingly prudish public taste; it remained at Marly until the Revolution, when it found its way to the Jardin des Tuileries.

[16] Sir Henry Hoare, 5th Baronet commissioned a copy of the Venus (likely by John Cheere) to be embedded in the niches of the newly constructed Pantheon on the Stourhead Estate in 1753–1754.

[17] The 19th-century identification was repopularised by the 20th-century lyrics of the French lyricist Georges Brassens, in his "Vénus Callipyge",[18] which seems explicitly to reference Jean de La Fontaine in his Conte tiré d'Athénée,[19] among the posthumous tales (the third under that title in the so-called contes libertins, the first two in the Première partie, published 10 January 1665), which paraphrases Athenaeus's account and ends in direct reference to the famous buttocks: c'eût été le temple de la Grèce/ Pour qui j'eusse eu plus de dévotion this would have been the temple of Greece/ For which I would have professed the most devotion.Metallic Venus, Jeff Koons's modern interpretation made of polished steel, is from his Antiquity Series.