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Venus de Milos
The Aphrodite of Melos is made of[1] marble and represents vivdly the goddess Aphrodite. This statue had earned it's name the Venus de Milo or Venus de Melos, because in 1820, a peasant had found it on the Greek island of Melos and it was named afte
r[2] the island where it was found.
The statue shows Aphrodite semi-nude and with a robe wrapped around her legs. For hundreds of years the statue had remained buried in an underground cavern. On account of[3] this, the statue had suffered significant damage and it was found in two parts. Later it was replaced together and sent to France, because the Marquis de Riviere had brought the statue and had given it to Louis XVIII of France[4]. Pieces of arms and a pedestal with an inscription, were also found in the cave, but these were later lost and never found again.
No one knows who created the statue of the Aphrodite of Melos. It is probably the work of the Greek artist Alexandros of Antioch. This name was inscribed on the block of stone on the pedestal that was later lost, but this is doubted from scholars because it may not have been the corrected block with the Venus de Milo, so this had erased the attribution to Alexandros. Some scholars had attributed the work of the statue to Praxiteles[5]. It is said that it was sculpted around the second century B.C. |
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