Venus de Milo Statue – Louvre Museum.

The Venus de Milo statue on display in The Louvre Museum in Paris is very famous. It is also one of the top 10 must see items in the museum and comes highly recommended. I found that the statue was not very crowded and I had some time to admire it. The statue named after Aphrodite the goddess of love and beauty is almost seven foot tall!

The statue is also called the Aphrodite of Milos and is thought to be the creation of Alexandros Antioch. He was a sculptor in ancient Greece.It was originally carved between 130 and 100 B.C. Something that you immediately see is that the arms are missing. I was anxious to find out what happened. This is the story and it is quite interesting.

History of the Venus de Milo Statue.

In 1820 a peasant found the statue buried in ruins in the ancient city of Milos. It was in pieces. A French naval officer realized that this work was important and he quickly arranged for its purchase by a French ambassador to Turkey. The peasant wanted money quickly and he sold it to a priest, without telling the officer. The priest bought it as a gift for someone in Constantinople. When the Ambassador arrived on the scene to see the statue being loaded onto a boat he quickly made a deal and got the statue back.

Mystery of the missing limbs.

The statue was put back together in the Louvre but the left hand and arm were omitted since it was thought they weren’t parts of the original statue due to their rougher craftsmanship. It has since been decided that they were original parts, left rough by the artist since they would have been above the eye line anyway- a common technique at the time. It was given to King Louis XVIII in 1821 but he eventually gave it back to the museum, where it remains today.

The left would have been held slightly below eye level and the hand contained an apple. The right arm would have crossed the torso to “hold” up the drapery covering her lower body. Though the left arm and hand had been recovered it was decided to leave them off even after they were verified originals.

Based on the era in which it was believed to be created, the statue would have been fully painted to more realistically resemble a woman. She also would have been decked out in a variety of jewelry. The paint has long since worn off. The jewelry either fell off or was stolen but there are holes visible where they would have been attached.

A mystery about the limbs had already developed among the public and the omissions increased her popularity.

A replica in the Bellas Artes Museum in Buenos Aires.

On a recent trip to Buenos Aires, I visited the famous Bellas Artes Museum. It was here that I encountered a life-size replica of the original Venus de Milo Statue in the Louvre. Art students have replicated many famous statues and I must admit, they did an excellent job!