Dumont d’Urville’s Report
The most important passage of Dumont d’Urville’s report1 about the discovery of the statue reads in an English translation thus:
“The Chevrette set sail from Toulon on April 3 (1820) in the morning, and anchored on the sixteenth in the roadstead of Milo....
“On the 19th I went to look at some antique pieces discovered at Milo a few days before our arrival. Since they seem to me worthy of attention I shall here record the result of my observation in some detail....
“About three weeks before our arrival at Milo a Greek peasant digging in his field... came across some stones of considerable size. As these stones... had a certain value, this consideration encouraged him to dig still further, and so he succeeded in clearing out a sort of recess in which he found a marble statue together with two hermae and some other pieces, likewise of marble.
“The statue was in two pieces joined in the middle by two small iron tenons. Fearing he would lose the fruit of his toil, the Greek had the upper part of the two hermae carried away and deposited in a stable. The rest were left in the cave. I examined all very carefully, and the various pieces seemed to me in good taste, as far as my slight acquaintance with the arts permitted me to judge of them.
“I measured the two parts of the statue separately and found it very nearly six feet in height; it represented a nude woman whose left hand was raised and held an apple, and the right supported a garment draped in easy folds and falling carelessly from her loins to her feet. Both hands have been mutilated and are actually detached from the body. The hair is coiled in the back and held up by a bandeau. The face is very beautiful and well preserved except that the tip of the nose is injured. The only remaining foot is bare; the ears have been pierced and may have contained pendants.
“All these attributes would seem to agree well enough with the Venus of the judgment of Paris; but in that case where would be Juno, Minerva and the handsome shepherd? It is true that a foot clad in a cothurnus and a third hand were found at the same time. On the other hand the name of the Island Melos has a very close connection with the word μῆλον which means apple. Might not this similarity of the words have indicated the statue by its principal attribute?
“The two hermae were with it in the cave. Beyond this fact there is nothing remarkable about them. Their height is about three feet and a half. One is surmounted by the head of a woman or child and the other by the face of an old man with a long beard.
“The entrance to the cave was surmounted by a piece of marble four feet and a half long and about six or eight inches wide. It bore an inscription of which only the first half has been respected by Time. The rest is entirely effaced. This loss is inestimable;... at least we might have learned on what occasion and by whom the statues had been dedicated.
“At any rate I have carefully copied the remaining characters of this inscription and I can guarantee them all except the first, of which I am not sure. The space which I indicate for the defaced part has been measured in proportion to the letters which are still legible:
:ΑΚΧΕΟΣΑΤΙΟΥΥΠΟΓΥ...........ΑΣ
ΤΑΝΤΕΕΞΕΔΡΑΝΚΑΙΤΟ.............
ΕΡΜΑΙΗΡΑΚΛΕΙ
“The pedestal of one of the hermae also bore an inscription but its characters had been so mutilated that it was impossible for me to decipher them.
“At the time of our passage to Constantinople the ambassador asked me about this statue and I told him what I thought about it, and sent to M. de Marcellus, secretary of the embassy, a copy of the inscription just given. Upon my return M. de Rivière informed me that he had acquired the statue for the museum and that it had been put on board one of the vessels at the landing. However, on our second trip to Milo in the month of September I regretted to learn that the affair was not yet ended. It seems that the peasant, tired of waiting, had decided to sell this statue for the sum of 750 piasters to a neighboring priest who wished to make a present to the dragoman of the Captain Pacha, and M. de Marcellus came just at the moment when it was being shipped to Constantinople. In despair at seeing this fine piece of antiquity about to escape him he made every effort to recover it, and thanks to the mediation of the primates of the island the priest finally consented, but not without reluctance, to abandon his purchase and give up the statue....
“On April 25 in the morning we doubled the promontory indicated....”
I understand from M. Dumont d’Urville’s report that the statue was in “two parts” each about three feet high, that both hands were mutilated and detached from the body,” and that he had reason to believe that the “left hand was raised and held an apple and the right supported a garment.” I say “he had reason to believe” it, but he positively speaks as if he had seen it although this cannot be the case, for he contradicts this fact by the unequivocal statement that the hands “are actually detached from the body.” He says, “it represented a nude woman, etc.” and the word “represented” need not mean that it was complete with all the limbs intact and in their proper places.
Obviously M. d’Urville here describes the statue restored with the fragments which were found in the cave, were bought of the finder, the peasant Bottonis, and are now preserved in a glass case in the Louvre at Paris. One of these fragments is a hand holding an apple, and there is also a portion of an arm.
This interpretation is important in so far as discussions have arisen in later years as to the original position of the hands when attempts to restore the statue were made, and then the claim was made that the statue had been found complete, that it had been broken by the French sailors in its transportation and that the French authorities had been careless in handling the whole affair.