![]() ![]() It was then taken to France, and offered to Louis the XVIII, who presented her to the Louvre. The French naval officer, Julius Dumont d’Urville realized its importance and purchased the statue. A farmer called Theodoros Kentrotas tried to hide the statue in his stone house, but Turkish officials seized it. Rather, she was discovered in 1820 on the Greek island of Milos, while local farmers were digging up stones to make their houses. You see, she hasn’t always lived in splendour at The Louvre. Indeed, we are lucky that Venus was even found. However, when you consider that Venus was made between 130 and 100 BC and is at least 2, 117 years old, it’s hardly surprising that she has her secrets. Moreover, while she is known as “Venus”, her more correct Greek title would have been “Aphrodite”. Indeed, there’s even been controversy and uncertainty over who sculpted Venus. ![]() These mysteries extend way beyond what happened to her missing arms, and what they were doing before they disappeared. Much mystery surrounds the Venus de Milo. This poem has stayed with me for the last 28 years, and has come back to me whenever I’ve felt disempowered and a modern day Venus without arms. The concluding stanza reads: Venus – I can’t believe it was just an accident that broke only your arms and rendered you a Work of Art. Venus Without Arms addresses the objectification and sexualisation of a woman’s body, and the resulting loss of power. So, you could say I was a supporting artist. It was International Women’s Day 1989, in Sydney University’s Manning Bar and I was performing my poetry at the launch of Rachel’s poetry anthology: Dragonshadow. ![]() While I finally had the opportunity to see the Venus de Milo while I was in Paris in 1992, I first heard about her in a poem by Rachel Bradley: Venus Without Arms. Yet, perhaps Venus de Milo still speaks for him… a mirror reflecting something of the man who created her. It is not known when he was born or died. According to inscriptions in Thespiae, near Mount Helicon, in Greece dating back to around 80 BCE, his father was Menides and he’d won contests for composing and singing. It appears that he was a wandering artist working on commission. Little is known about Alexandros of Antioch. ![]()
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