Today in History: The Venus de Milo was found in 1820
Widely known for her missing arms, the Venus de Milo is one of the most famous marble sculptures from Ancient Greece.
The statue is believed to have originated some time between 130 BC and 100 BC in the Hellenistic Age in Greece, and is thought to have been carved by Alexandros of Antioch.
The sculpture, made from six or seven slabs of Parian marble, stands slightly larger than life-size at 2,03m tall and is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty (Venus to the Romans).
There are several accounts of the discovery of the statue, but the general consensus seems to be that it was found by a peasant on the Greek island of Milos (after which the statue was named) on 8 April, 1820.
The exact location of its discovery on the island and the identity of the person who found it are two of the most debated topics in the history of the sculpture.
Nonetheless, the statue was found in two large pieces (the upper torso and the lower draped legs), along with fragments of the upper left arm and left hand holding an apple, as well as an inscribed plinth.
The inscription on the plinth allegedly read “…(Alex)andros son of Menides, citizen of Antioch on the Maeander made this (statue)…”.
The statue eventually made its way to the French king Louis XVIII in 1821, without the plinth. He passed it onto the Louvre Museum in Paris.
The statue has been moved from the museum twice for fear of its safety; once in 1871 during the Paris Commune uprising when it was moved to the Police Prefecture which was burned down, although the statue survived unharmed, and secondly in 1939 when it and other Louvre artworks were moved to safer locations in the French countryside for fear of the outbreak of war.
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