She ’s one of the most recognisable figures in theartworld , but shrouded in secret . Ever since Louis XVIII donated her to theLouvrein 1821 , she ’s captured the attention and praise of audiences and historians , but many are still scotch by her origins — whoisVenus de Milo , and what precisely happened to her arms ?
The half - naked marble goddess many of us know as Venus de Milo actually likely represent two figures who are notVenus , the Roman Catholic goddess of love , gender , peach and fecundity . The statue is thought to represent eitherAphrodite , Venus ’s Grecian counterpart , orAmphitrite , the goddess - queen of the sea and wife of Poseidon . But when the statue was discovered in 1820 on the Grecian island of Melos ( Milos in forward-looking Greek ) and presented to Louis ( who in bout donated her to the Louvre ) , no one was quite certain what to make of her .
" When the Louvre acquire the statue in 1820 , the British Museum had just gain the Elgin Marbles ( 1816 ) , universally impute to the fifth - hundred B.C.E. sculptorPheidias , generally acknowledged by antediluvian and moderns as the greatest of Greek sculptors,“Andrew Stewart , Nicholas C. Petris Professor of Greek Studies Emeritus at UC Berkeley , says via email . " Moreover , the Louvre and in turn , Gallic artwork as a whole , had just suffered huge losses when in 1815 - 1818Napoleon ’s looted artwork collectionwas return to its country of source . The museum lost some of its most iconic pieces , such as theVatican Laocoönand Florence’sVenus de Medici . So national pride ask to be reinstate , and the Venus de Milo ( properly , ' Aphrodite , ' since she ’s Greek ) was literally a godsend . "
But because of the statue ’s unique property , experts had some trouble describe her origins . " Since she was obviously later stylistically , but still classical , she was immediately attributed toPraxiteles , the greatest fourth - 100 B.C.E. sculptor and universally acknowledged passkey of the female nude , epitomize by the love - goddess Aphrodite . A groundwork found with her bless by the sculptor [ Alex]andros of Magnesia on the Meander(a metropolis not founded until the third 100 B.C.E. ) , was thus immediately and conveniently lost . "
According to Stewart , German archaeologistAdolf Furtwängleris credited with discovering Venus de Milo ’s honest roots as a Greek neoclassic statue , not a classic one , but the disclosure did n’t come until the late nineteenth century when he realize that her curtain was distinctly Hellenistical and probably created in the second century B.C.E. Despite her authentic identity element , the statue is still often tied to an older era . " She still is regarded as a masterpiece of the [ classical ] genre , partly because we have so few master of her sizing , res publica of conservation and quality , " Stewart articulate .
While the Louvre internet site trace the statue as " shroud in mystery , " some detail of her original visual aspect are get laid . For one affair , she originally wore metal jewelry including a watchstrap , earring , and headband , since there are fixation holes continue in all those expanse on her body . The marble that she ’s carved from may have been embellished withpolychromythat ’s now faded . And at some distributor point , she did , in fact have arms — but they were never find .
" The correct subdivision is broken away : its hand originally dig the top of her drapery , " Stewart tell . " The bust , leg , left arm , metrical foot , root andherm[an archaic bearded head of the god get on on a square - section stone pillar ] socketed into the base , were carved separately , and doweled on with iron dowel pin jell in lead : a rough-cut technique . "
Stewart says that at the end of antiquity ( a time geological period thatsignifies the transitionfrom the Greco - Roman period to the Middle Ages ) , someone remove Venus ' limbs to take the metal dowel pin and recycle them . " The best stake , in my judgment , is that she held an apple in her outstretched left hand , which would have rested on the herm , " he says . " Such an weapon was found in a nearby niche , and is exemplify in a 19th century draw in the Louvre . The Malus pumila would be both her personal accessory or attribute ( her token loot at the " Judgment of Paris " ) and a punning on the name of the island , since the Greek for Malus pumila is μήλον ( mēlon ) , and apples have prominently on Hellenistic Melian coin . "
The " Judgment of Paris " is an important Greek myth that ’s central to Venus ' meaning and describes a contest between three goddess — Aphrodite , Hera and Athena — for the award of a prosperous Malus pumila addressed " To the Fairest . " In his book , " Art in the Hellenistic World : An origination , " Stewart describes the Venus de Milo ’s many symbolical ties . He save , " Dedicated to the god of the lyceum in which she was found , she would have symbolized the tie of fondness ( erôs ) that united the Melians who practise there . Moreover , Greeks had long realise the ' Judgment of Paris ' as symbolizing a piece ’s three principal life-time alternative : warfare ( Athena ) , politics ( Hera ) or passion ( Aphrodite ) . " Stewart says that because the Romans were now largely engaged in war and government , the third class — love , marriage and domesticity — " had become more and more attractive . " According to Stewart , Venus ’s multidimensional charm " would have create the sense of an in - group among the gymnasium ’s clientele , satisfying at one stroke the demands of local piousness and this culture ’s reverse desire to connect . "
But agree toElizabeth Wayland Barber , professor emerita of archaeology and philology at Occidental College and author of " Women ’s oeuvre : The First 20,000 Years Women , Cloth , and Society in Early Times , " Venus ’s neglect arms were very much plight in a different , meaningful domestic activity . " While studying the origin and development of textiles in the Eastern Hemisphere ( we now have grounds there for homo spinning screw thread or yarn back more than 50,000 year , and weaving back 25,000 years ) , I found plentiful grounds that women were always doing most or all of the fabric - come to work , " Barber says via email . " The Venus de Milo is in exactly the position used at that prison term and place for spinning screw thread — the part of the task that took the most time , so woman were spinning every moment they could find . "
Barber say that although the statue ’s arms are long go away , the musculature sculpture in her shoulders and upper back suggest they wereraised in just the situation required for spinning , and her eyes are focused on the exact smudge one would have to watch as they spin . " Also , Aphrodite ( aka Venus)was take in by the Greeks asthegoddess of spin as well as of procreation , " Barber says . " But the two are closely linked , both by the umbilical electric cord attach to the young infant , and by the fact that , in both spinning and baby - making , you lead off with a formless blob and make something remarkable out of it , seemingly by magic . " In Barber ’s Scripture , there ’s even anillustration of the Venus de Milo reconstructed as spinning . )
While experts reserve vary hypothesis over Venus de Milo ’s original activity , many are in concord that she keep to be one of the most fascinating , albeit puzzling , mathematical product of theHellenistic Period . And as The Guardian ’s Jonathan Joneswrote in 2015 , " The Venus de Milo is an accidental surrealist chef-d’oeuvre . Her want of arms make her foreign and dreamlike . She is perfect but imperfect , beautiful but broken — the body as a laying waste . That sense of enigmatic incompleteness has transformed an ancient work of art into a modern one . "
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