The Venus de Milo is a famous Greek statue. It is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexual love and physical beauty. Venus is her Roman name. It is a marble sculpture, 203 cm high. The sculpture dates back to about 130 BC, and is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch.

In 1820 the sculpture was found on the Aegean island of Melos by a peasant named Yorgos. He hid it from the authorities but was later discovered by Turkish officials, who seized the sculpture. A French naval officer, Jules Dumont d'Urville, recognized its significance and arranged for a purchase by the French ambassador to Turkey The Marquis de Riviere. After some repairing, the statue was presented to King Louis XVIII, who eventually presented it to the Louvre museum in Paris, where it is now.

Various replicas exist around the world and some can be purchased via the Internet.

This statue is not to be confused with the group of statuettes known as Venus figurines.

Venus de Milo in Popular Culture

The band Television dedicated the song Venus on the album Marquee Moon to the statue.

In the farcical movie Carry on Cleo (1964) the statue loses its arms when hit by swords in a botched assassination of Julius Caesar.

The fictional rock group Spinal Tap has an album called Intravenus de Milo .

In episode 2F06 ("Homer Bad Man") of the TV show the Simpsons, Homer attends a candy convention and observes a gummi figurine lying in glass case. The proprietor informs him that the gummi is "the rarest gummi of them all, the gummi Venus de Milo, carved by gummi artisans who work exclusively in the medium of gummi", upon which Marge requests that they stop saying "gummi" so much. Homer proceeds to steal the Gummi Venus de Milo. The green gummi was drawn as a fairly accurate replica of the actual sculpture.

External links

• Musée du Louvre – Louvre Museum : Venus de Milo
• Controversy and politics over the sculptor's identity