Facebook has apologised after conceding it “incorrectly” banned a photograph of the naked sea god Neptune and sought to have an Italian art historian remove it from her web page.

The 16th century Renaissance statue, which stands in Piazza del Nettuno in Bologna, was chosen by local writer Elisa Barbari to illustrate her Facebook page entitled, “Stories, curiosities and views of Bologna”.

But in an embarrassing back down, the social media giant acknowledged it had made a mistake about seeking to ban the photo of the nude statue armed with a large trident.

“Our team processes millions of advertising images each week and in some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads,” said Facebook in a statement issued to The Telegraph.

“This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologise for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ad."

Before the climbdown, Ms Barbari had said she was shocked by Facebook’s censorship of the photograph of the famous statue which was created by Flemish sculptor Jean de Boulogne in the 1560s.

“I wanted to promote my page but it seems that for Facebook the statue is a sexually explicit image that shows off too much flesh. Really, Neptune? This is crazy!” Ms Barbari said.