I’ve seen people actually try to lick her boobs. Only attempt to tongue this Rupert Schmid sculpture if you want museum security to yell at you.

Seriously though. She’s a babe, but California Venus has a gruesome backstory. Marian Nolan was Schmid’s muse for this sculpture. Reputed to be 'the most beautiful woman in California,' Nolan posed for a few sculpted works by different artists during her short life.

After divorcing a wealthy Mexican entrepreneur, Nolan had a brief fling with a stenographer named Edward Marshuts. When Nolan got tired of her new boyfriend, Marshuts’s infatuation only turned to obsession. Unwilling to stomach rejection, he began to stalk Nolan. One afternoon in October 1902, Marshuts cornered Nolan outside of her San Francisco home. The fight that ensued escalated into a bloodbath when he shot her dead in the street, and then turned his gun on himself.

The story of their bad romance casts a creepy light on Venus’s peaceful beauty. Perhaps she’s Nolan’s marble ghost.