The Venus de Milo or Aphrodite of Melos is an ancient Greek marble sculpture that was created during the Hellenistic period. Its exact dating is uncertain, but the modern consensus places it in the 2nd century BC, perhaps between 160 and 110 BC. It was discovered in 1820 on the island of Milos, Greece, and has been displayed at the Louvre Museum since 1821. Since the statue's discovery, it has become one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture in the world.
The Venus de Milo is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, whose Roman counterpart was Venus. Made of Parian marble, the statue is larger than life size, standing over high. The statue is missing both arms. The original position of these missing arms is uncertain. The sculpture was originally identified as depicting Aphrodite holding the apple of discord as a marble hand holding an apple was found alongside it; recent scientific analysis supports the identification of this hand as part of the sculpture. On the basis of a now-lost inscription found near the sculpture, it has been attributed to Alexandros from Antioch on the Maeander, though the name on the inscription is uncertain and its connection to the Venus is disputed.
The Venus de Milo rapidly became a cornerstone of the Louvre's antiquities collection in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and its fame spread through distribution in photographs and three-dimensional copies. The statue inspired over 70 poems, influenced 19th-century art and the Surrealist movement in the early 20th century, and has been featured in various modern artistic projects, including film and advertising. In contrast to the popular appreciation of the sculpture, scholars have been more critical. Though upon its discovery the Venus was considered a classical masterpiece, since it was re-dated to the Hellenistic period classicists have neglected the Venus in favour of studying sculptures mentioned in ancient written sources, even though they only survive as later copies which are technically inferior to the Venus.
Description
The Venus de Milo is an over tall Parian marble statue Both inscriptions are now lost. Other sculptural fragments found around the same time include a third herm, two further arms, and a foot with sandal.
Dumont D'Urville wrote an account of the find. According to his testimony, the Venus statue was found in a quadrangular niche. If this findspot were the original context for the Venus, the niche and the gymnasiarch's inscription suggests that the Venus de Milo was installed in the gymnasium of Melos. An alternative theory proposed by Salomon Reinach is that the findspot was instead the remains of a lime kiln, and that the other fragments had no connection to the Venus; this theory is dismissed by Christofilis Maggidis as having "no factual basis".
After stopping in Melos, D'Urville's ship sailed to Constantinople, where he reported the find to the , assistant to Charles François de Riffardeau, marquis de Rivière, the French ambassador. Rivière agreed that Marcellus should go to Melos to buy the statue. By the time Marcellus arrived at Melos, the farmer who discovered the statue had already received another offer to buy it, and it had been loaded onto a ship; the French intervened and Marcellus was able to buy the Venus. It was brought to France, where Louis XVIII had it installed in the Louvre. Contrary to the usual practice at the time, on the recommendation of Quatremère de Quincy, the Venus was not significantly restored but was exhibited in the state in which she was discovered. Quatremère, who believed that the Venus was originally part of a group with a sculpture of Mars, argued that as the entire Mars was missing it was impossible to restore the sculpture.
Display
thumb|right|The Venus de Milo on display in the Louvre, c. 1824–1830, attributed to [[Joseph Warlencourt]]
The Venus de Milo was initially installed in the Louvre in 1821; it was rapidly moved twice before finding a long-term home in the where it remained until 1848. From there it was moved to the , where it remained until being removed from the museum in 1870 for protection during the Paris Commune. When the was renovated in the 1880s, the Venus was given a new pedestal which allowed spectators to rotate the sculpture; at the same time the approach to the sculpture was filled with other ancient Venus statues.
The Venus was among the works evacuated from Paris to the Church of the Jacobins in Toulouse during the First World War. After the war, the curator Paul Jamot proposed to display the Venus alongside the Leonardo's Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave; this was never carried out. In 1936, the sculpture was once again moved, to the to accommodate the volume of visitors to the Louvre; the other Venus statues were removed to focus visitors on the Venus de Milo. At this time the route for visitors through the Louvre was modified to be more chronological, coming through galleries of archaic and classical sculpture before arriving in a gallery dedicated to the Hellenstic period; the Venus de Milo was placed between the classical and Hellenistic galleries.
During the Second World War the sculpture was once again removed from the Louvre for safekeeping, and stored in the Château de Valençay; a plaster replica was displayed in its place. In 1964 it was exhibited in Tokyo and Kyoto; this is the only time the sculpture has left France since it was acquired by the Louvre. In 1972 an experiment was made with a new site for the sculpture, and it was temporarily moved to allow renovations in the 1980s and 1990s; by 1999 the volume of visitors to the Venus was causing problems and the Louvre authorities were considering returning the sculpture to its previous setting. In 2010 the sculpture was installed in its new setting, with the sculptural fragments discovered alongside it on display in the same room.
Interpretation
Identification
[[File:Paris Louvre Venus de Milo Debay drawing.jpg|thumb|upright|Venus de Milo drawn by Auguste Debay. The inscribed plinth, if originally part of the Venus, identifies the sculptor as [---]andros of Antioch on the Maeander and supports a date for the work in the Hellenistic period.]]
The Venus de Milo is probably a sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite, but its fragmentary state makes secure identification difficult. The earliest written accounts of the sculpture, by a French captain and the French vice-consul on Melos, both identify it as representing Aphrodite holding the apple of discord, apparently on the basis of the hand holding an apple found with the sculpture. An alternative identification proposed by Reinach is that she represents the sea-goddess Amphitrite, and was originally grouped with a sculpture of Poseidon from Melos, discovered in 1878. Other proposed identifications include a Muse, Nemesis, or Sappho.
The authorship and date of the Venus de Milo were both disputed from its discovery. Within a month of its acquisition by the Louvre, three French scholars had published papers on the statue, disagreeing on all aspects of its interpretation: Toussaint-Bernard Éméric-David thought it dated to , between sculptors Phidias and Praxiteles; Quatremère de Quincy attributed it to the mid-fourth century and the circle of Praxiteles; and the Comte de Clarac thought it a later copy of a work by Praxiteles. The scholarly consensus in the 19th century was that the Venus dated to the fourth century BC. In 1893, Adolf Furtwängler was the first to argue that it was in fact late Hellenistic, dating to , and this dating continues to be widely accepted.
One of the inscriptions discovered with the statue, which was drawn by Debay as fitting into the missing section of the statue's plinth, names the sculptor as [---]andros, son of [M]enides, of Antioch on the Maeander.