![]() Within a few hours Voutier had uncovered a piece of art that would become renowned throughout the world. With the help of the young farmer, Voutier began to dig around what were clearly ancient ruins. Olivier Voutier, a French naval officer, was exploring the island. The statue was found in two main pieces (the upper torso and the lower draped legs) along with several herms (pillars topped with heads), fragments of the upper left arm and left hand holding an apple, and an inscribed plinth. The Venus de Milo was discovered by a peasant named Yorgos Kentrotas in 1820, inside a buried niche within the ancient city ruins of Milos, on the Aegean island of Milos, (also Melos or Milo). Moreover, the sensuous juxtaposition of flesh with the texture of drapery, which seems about to slip off the figure, adds an insistent note of erotic tension that is thoroughly Hellenistic in concept and intent. The twisting stance and strong projection of the knee, as well as the rich, three-dimensional quality of the drapery, are typical of Hellenistic art of the third century BC and later. Today, all traces of any paint have disappeared and the only signs of the armbands, necklace, earrings and crown are the attachment holes. The painting of the statue along with the bedecking in jewellery were intended to make it appear more lifelike. The statue would have been tinted as was the custom of the era, adorned with jewellery and positioned in a niche inside of a gymnasium. When the left hand was still attached, it would have been clear to an observer that the goddess was looking at the apple she held up in her left hand. The left hand would have held the apple up into the air further back inside the niche the statue was set in. The right side of the statue is more carefully worked and finished than the left side or back, indicating that the statue was intended to be seen mainly as a profile from its right. The left arm was held at just below the eye level of the statue above a herm while holding an apple. There is a filled hole below the right breast that originally contained a metal tenon that would have supported the separately carved right arm. Napoleon I bought the collection of his brother-in-law Prince Camille Borghese in 1807, then had the gallery expanded to include the nearby rooms which now house the Venus de Milo, among other masterpieces.Although the Venus de Milo is widely renowned for the mystery of her missing arms enough evidence remains to prove that the right arm of the goddess was lowered across the torso with the right hand resting on the raised left knee so the sliding drapery wrapped around the hips and legs could be held in place. The summer apartments of Anne of Austria were converted to create the Galerie des Antiques. ![]() The year 1798 saw the arrival of other antiquities, confiscated during Napoleon’s military campaigns in Italy. ![]() The process began in 1692 when Louis XIV displayed some of his sculptures in the Salle des Cariatides. The Louvre’s collection of Greek and Roman antiquities was installed little by little. But a number of questions arose: should she be displayed alone or among other artworks? What kind of base should she stand on and in what kind of setting? Wouldn’t she look better among the paintings in the Grande Galerie? Finally, after almost 200 years, the Venus was returned to the room where she had first been displayed – and now she has pride of place, standing almost alone in the middle of the exhibition space to allow visitors a better view. Unsurprisingly, she was first placed in the Galerie des Antiques, where she can still be admired today. The Venus de Milo entered the Louvre in 1821 but her location within the museum has been changed several times. ![]()
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