When asked by one of our collectors to consider using the Venus de Milo in a sculpture, we were initially quite intimidated. But as we researched the history of the statue and her mythology, it became a delightful and thought provoking discovery.
We wondered why she was made in the first century BC, what story is she telling. She was made to illustrate the tale of the Golden Apple of Discord. The goddess of strife, Eris, inscribed onto a Golden Apple – “For The Fairest” – initiating a contest of vanity between Venus, Hera & Athena. Naturally Venus, being the goddess of fun stuff won. Somehow this led to the Trojan War but that’s a mess for another time.
The next question was to ask what is the current Golden Apple of Discord? What is the golden prize we all seek? We submit that the answer is the “smart” phone. The incessant habit of taking selfies and seeking the attention of the world is our current desire driven by our own Golden Apple of Discord.
Venus has always driven humans a bit crazy. The fantastic story of her discovery on the island of Melos in Greece, then the deals made to acquire her, moving her about and her final arrival at the Louvre in Paris is a fantastic tale. It is filled with Venus driven desire, greed, avarice, and adoration. She continues to use her charms to drive our own behaviors and vanities.
A fragment containing the signature of the sculptor that created her was found with her. The problem was that it accurately dated her to the 1st century BC. This was inconvenient for the curators and scholars at the Louvre when she arrived. They wanted her to be from the 4th-5th century BC and to have been sculpted by a more prestigious sculptor, thereby crowning her the queen of antiquities – a competitive edge against the other western museum collections. The fragment went missing, but a drawing made by the sailor who was on the scene of her discovery survived. We have included it on each side of this sculpture. One side has it written in the original Greek. The translation is seen here and reads…
Alexandros, Son of Menides, Citizen of Antioch of Meander, Made the Statue
Thank you Alexandros and thank you to our friend that sent us on this epic journey.
Then we got to thinking…and started to imagine Venus on holiday….
Leah Wingfield & Steve Clements Glass 