Alexandros of Antioch, Venus de Milo, 150-125 BCE

We’re pleased to present a series of excerpts from Jane Ursula Harris’  forthcoming book, After: The Role of the Copy in Modern and Contemporary Art. Harris’ survey assembles key examples of the copy from the onset of modernism to the present, and explores the copy’s relationship to the western canon. The following is the first of a two part exploration on the history and influence of the Venus de Milo.

See Part II, and On Jasper Johns.

On Venus de Milo (Part I)

The story of the Venus de Milo’s acquisition and provenance is essential to her stardom, and art-historically speaking, she is a star. From Honoré Daumier and Salvador Dali to Niki de Saint Phalle and Andres Serrano, countless artists have paid homage to the ancient work.

But the Venus de Milo didn’t always seem destined for fame. For ages she lay in a heap of ruins on the island of Milos, and might have languished there forever if a local farmer hadn’t discovered her in 1820. He hid his find from the Turks who ruled Milos at the time, but authorities found him out, and seized the broken statue. This too could have been the end of her story, had Comte de Marcellus (1795-1865), secretary to the French embassy in Constantinople, not intervened, immediately understanding the value of such a monumental work.

Five years earlier, in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat and exile, France had been forced to cede the celebrated Medici Venus and Apollo Belvedere back to the Vatican. Marcellus knew his monarch would be eager to acquire the work, as a result,  and soon arranged for the purchase of the Venus de Milo. He presented the larger-than-life statue, relatively intact for an ancient work of art, to Louis XVIII the following year. It sold for 1,000 francs (about $20,000) , together with the plinth it stood on, and fragments of its missing left arm.

In addition to France’s desire to rebuild its treasure trove of antiquities, the Neoclassical period (1770-1820) that was still flourishing at the time helped motivate the acquisition. For in a pivotal, perhaps willful mistake, the statue was immediately presumed to be an authentic classical work, and installed in the classical wing of the Louvre.

The misattribution remains key to the legacy of the Venus de Milo. Had her true author been known, she likely would’ve been locked away in the museum’s archive, if not sold off. Hellenistic art had by then been denigrated by Renaissance scholars who re-conceived it in anti-classical terms, finding in its expressive, experimental form, and emotional content a provocative realism that defied everything their...