Everyone has heard of the Venus de Milo. It is easily one of the most famous, most instantly recognizable sculptures of all time. It been referenced, imitated, and spoofed countless times in popular culture. Have you ever stopped to wonder why it is so famous, though? Why is it that we all revere this one particular statue? Well, as it turns out, the present-day hype over the Venus de Milo is, to a large extent, the result of wounded French national pride in the early nineteenth century.
Dispelling a few misconceptions
If you asked a random person off the street why the Venus de Milo is so famous, chances are they would probably say something like, “because its missing its arms and there’s this huge mystery over what happened to them!” This is not, in fact, the case. The fact that the Venus de Milo is missing its arms has nothing to do with the reason why it is so famous.
We know this because there is absolutely nothing unique about the Venus de Milo‘s missing arms. In fact, believe it or not, it is actually extremely common for ancient sculptures to be missing their limbs. As I explain in this article I published on 9 July 2019, the reason why so many ancient sculptures are missing their arms is because the arms stick out and are more likely to break off. Noses, heads, and other appendages break off frequently as well.
The Venus de Milo is just one of at least several dozen surviving ancient sculptures with no arms. If missing arms alone were enough to make a statue famous, then we would expect all these other sculptures to be just as famous as the Venus de Milo, but they are not. This indicates that the Venus de Milo is not famous because of its missing arms. The fact that the statue is missing its arms is entirely incidental to the statue’s fame.
Background
Before I tell you the real reason why the Venus de Milo is so famous, I think we ought to cover a bit of basic background information about the statue. The Venus de Milo—or, perhaps more correctly, given that it is a Greek sculpture, the Aphrodite of Melos—is a Hellenistic marble sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite that was originally carved in the late second century BC by the obscure Greek sculptor Alexandros of Antioch. It was discovered on the Greek island of Melos on 8 April 1820 by a Greek peasant amid the ruins of the ancient city. Olivier Voutier, an ensign for the French navy who was on Melos at the time, found out about the sculpture and had it excavated.
The statue was in two large pieces at the time of its discovery. A plinth with an inscription stating that the statue was created by Alexandros of Antioch, fragments of the statue’s left arm, and the statue’s left hand, which was holding an apple, were also recovered. The statue was soon after taken to France, along with the plinth and all the fragments associated with it.
In France, the Aphrodite of Melos was hailed as an original sculpture by the great ancient Greek master sculptor Praxiteles of Athens, even though its plinth clearly stated that it had been carved by Alexandros of Antioch. The statue was presented to King Louis XVIII, who donated it to the Louvre.
ABOVE: Portrait of King Louis XVIII of France by François Gérard. Louis XVIII was the king of France to whom the Aphrodite of Melos was presented when it arrived in France.
The statue’s appearance when it was first put on display in the Louvre in 1821 is known from a sketch drawn by Auguste Debay at the request of the French Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David (lived 1748 – 1825). David had taken part in the French Revolution and, upon the restoration of the French monarchy, had fled France.
At the time of the Aphrodite of Melos‘s arrival in Paris, David was living in exile in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, but he still wished to know what the Aphrodite of Melos looked like, so he sent a request to the curator of ancient restorations at the Louvre, who had a his son, Auguste Debay, draw a sketch of the statue to send to David. An engraving based on Debay’s sketch was later used by Charles Othon Frédéric Jean-Baptiste de Clarac (lived 1777 – 1847) as the frontispiece for his book about the Aphrodite of Melos.
ABOVE: Engraving based on Debay’s sketch used as the frontispiece for a book published by Frédéric, comte de Clarac
The inscribed plinth with Alexandros of Antioch’s name on it was lost shortly after the statue was first put on display. It has long been suspected that the plinth may have been deliberately “lost,” since it directly undermined the claim that the Aphrodite of Melos was an original sculpture by Praxiteles. The statue itself, however, is still on permanent public display in the Louvre. Additionally, the fragments of the statue’s left arm and her left hand are still in the Louvre’s possession.
ABOVE: The Aphrodite of Melos on display in the Louvre
The real reason why the Aphrodite of Melos is so famous
Although it would be simplistic to single out just one reason why the Aphrodite of Melos is so famous, a large part of its fame today is actually due to a French propaganda campaign in the early nineteenth century. You see, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Italy (1792–1802), his troops had looted the Venus d’Medici or Medici Aphrodite, which, at the time, was more-or-less considered the greatest sculpture of Venus ever discovered. They brought it to France.
The theft of this great sculpture was hailed by the French as a magnificent triumph, but, then, in 1815, the French were forced to return the renowned sculpture to Italy. This brought a great deal of shame upon the French nation. In the years afterwards, people were desperately looking for something that could restore France’s honor.
Naturally, when the French got ahold of the Aphrodite of Melos, they sought to mend their wounded pride by launching a massive campaign to convince everyone that it was a far more magnificent sculpture than the one they had recently been forced to return. This is the reason why the French claimed that the Aphrodite of Melos was an original work of Praxiteles of Athens—a claim which greatly enhanced the statue’s reputation, but which is now known to have been erroneous.
French artists and art critics lavished praise upon the Aphrodite of Melos, proclaiming it the greatest sculpture of all time, a work of sheer artistic perfection. Now the Aphrodite of Melos is world-famous and the Medici Aphrodite is obscure. I suppose this demonstrates the power of propaganda.
ABOVE: The Medici Aphrodite, which was considered the greatest sculpture of Venus before the discovery of the Aphrodite of Melos
