A Year: Day to Day Men: 8th of April
The Thrill of a New Day
The Greek statue Aphrodite of Milos, known as the Venus de Milo, is discovered on April 8, 1820.
The Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek marble statue believed to depict the goddess Aphrodite. It was initially attributed to the sculptor Praxiteles; however, from an inscription on its base, it is now thought to be sculpted by Alexandros of Antioch, a wandering artist who worked on commission. Created between 130-100 BC, it is slightly larger than life and widely known for the mystery of her missing arms. The goddess originally wore metal jewelry — bracelet, earrings, and headband — of which only the fixation holes remain.
The Venus statue is generally asserted as being discovered by Yorgos Kentrotas on April 8, 1820, inside a buried niche within the ancient city ruins of Milos on the island of Milos in the Aegean Sea, which at that time was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The statue was found in two large pieces (the upper torso and the lower draped legs) along with serveral pillars topped with sculpted heads, fragments of the upper left arm and the left hand holding an apple, and an inscribed plinth. Part of an arm and the original plinth was lost following the discovery.
In 1871, during the Paris Commune uprising, many public buildings were burned. The Venus de Milo statue was secreted out of the Louvre Museum in an oak crate and hidden in the basement of Prefecture of Police. Though the Prefecture was burned, the statue survived undamaged.
In the autumn of 1939, the Venus was packed for removal from the Louvre in anticipation of the outbreak of war. Scenery trucks from the theater Comédie-Française transported the Louvre’s masterpieces to safer locations in the French countryside. During World War II, the statue was sheltered safely in the Chateau de Valençay in the province of Berry, along with the two other sculptures, “Winged Victory of Samothrace” and Michelangelo’s “Slaves”.
When the discoverer, the farmer Yorgos Kentrotas, called upon a French naval officer to help him unearth the sculpture, it began a chain of events that eventually involved the Marquis de Rivière who presented the Venus de Milo to Louis XVIII, The king donated the sculpture to the Louvre the following year 1821 where this statue, a traditional example of Hellenistic sculpture, is on permanent display at the Louvre.