Letters from other people involved in the purchase of the statue make several references to broken arms that were “detached from the body.” Relatives of the farmer who dug up the statue later claimed that they had seen a left hand clutching an apple. Her missing arms are her most notable feature, and yet it’s possible that Venus did still have at least her left arm at the time she was discovered. It’s only after so much Greek heritage has been swept away that we can treasure the statue as an icon of feminine beauty.
The Venus de Milo started its trajectory as an ordinary sculpture by an unknown artist, living on a remote island. Venus, an emblem of serenity, would have looked downright gaudy. The Greeks painted their statues with bright colours and decorated them with jewellery. It undoubtedly had a different impact before it was damaged underground when it was stationed in some Greek gymnasium. The statue’s beauty, as we know it, comes from its imperfection – it’s chipped, battered, broken, and yet elegant Venus has been displayed in the Louvre without a base. So museum curators ditched Winckelmann’s theory and ditched the classical base that was attached to the statue. Yet the statue’s inscription read: “andros son of Menides, a citizen of Antioch on the Maeander, made this statue.” Alexandros was hardly a classical master, and Antioch on the Maeander didn’t even exist during the classical period – it was a Hellenistic colony. It’s carved base, after all, masterfully fit the statue to a T. He proffered that Greek art had peaked centuries earlier during the classical period (510-323BCE) and experienced a decline thereafter.Ī first look at the statue, therefore, led museum experts to believe the Venus de Milo had been created during the belle époque of Greek art. The theory of German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) dominated the discipline of art history at the time. Classical Masterpiece, or Work of an Amateur?Įxperts who laid eyes on the Venus de Milo were awestruck, and determined the statue to be a work of a classical master.
He negotiated at length with the islanders, who finally arranged to sell it back to him. D’Urville was determined to get the statue back into his own grasp.
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