CAG.0918 After Alexandros of Antioch, Aphrodite of Melos (Venus de Milo), undated, plaster cast, 200 x 71 x 61 cm. Transferred, Royal Cork Institution, c.1849.

This WORK OF THE WEEK needs no introduction!

Aphrodite of Melos is a plaster cast of a famed Hellenistic sculpture, better known as Venus de Milo, and is a key work in our current audio-visual experience, muscle: a question of power.

Although it is thought to depict the goddess of beauty, love, passion, and sexuality, some scholars suggest that it may in fact represent the sea goddess Amphitrite, consort of Poseidon. Standing over two metres tall, the sculpture depicts a semi-nude female figure posed in contrapposto which lends it a sense of movement.

‘The ghosts of her arms have caused much speculation,’ Anna Furse considers, ‘perhaps the right would have been crossed over her lower body, the left across her top. We don’t know if this was in modesty or, conversely, to draw attention to her important bits: look at what you can’t see – the oldest peekaboo in the books.’

The original Parian marble sculpture was rediscovered, in its damaged state, in 1820 by a Greek farmer on the island of Melos (Milos or Μήλος). It is thought to have been made c.150 BCE by Alexandros of Antioch and, following its rediscovery, was purchased by Louis XVIII. Apart from the period of the Second World War (when it was stored at the Château de Valençay), since 1821 it has resided in – and become an icon of – the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

Curiously, although it has lacked arms and earlobes since its unearthing, unlike the marble original our plaster cast possesses a left foot! This may preserve a (now reversed) restoration of the marble statue or, indeed, might have been added to the cast after its arrival in Cork.

Aphrodite of Melos is featured in muscle: a question of power until 20 August.

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