Debay’s Drawing
The famous French painter David happened to be in exile at the time of the discovery of the Venus of Milo, and, taking an especial interest in this wonderful piece of ancient art, he induced one of his disciples, a certain Debay, to have his son Auguste Debay, a young art student, make a drawing of the statue as soon as it was put up in the Louvre. This drawing was afterwards published by M. de Clarac in his “Notice” and we here republish it on account of the importance it has gained as a document in the history of the statue.
Debay’s drawing shows a plinth bearing an inscription and also exhibiting a square hole in the ground near the left foot of the statue. The angle of vision is indicated by the line “xx” which shows the height from which the statue was viewed by M. Debay. The point a corresponds to the place of the eye projected horizontally at a distance in front which cannot have been more than one and one-half times the height of the statue. Geometrically this place is determined by the intersection of two lines from a and b constructed in a horizontal plane at right angles to the vertical axis of the statue.
The inscription on the pedestal of M. Debay’s drawing reads:
...—ΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΗΝΙΔΟΥ
... ΙΟΧΕΥΣΑΠΟΜΑΙΑΝΔΡΟΥ
ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ
“... andros son of Menides of [Ant]iochia on the Maiandros.”
Since of the last missing letter before the Α the lowest stroke of a Greek Ξ or of an Σ is discernible in the drawing, the name must have read “Alexandros” or “Agesandros.” This man cannot have lived before the third century B. C. because his native city Antioch on the Maeander was founded by Antiochus I, the second of the Diadochs (280-261 B. C.) According to Professor Kirchhoff’s view the character of the letters belongs to the first century and may in his opinion be dated back at most to the middle of the second century B. C.
We have no information whatever why the plinth was joined to the statue. All we know about it is that it appears on the Debay drawing and is lost now, but it continues to be a mystery to archeologists.
Some consider it as genuine and denounce the authorities of the Louvre for their extraordinary carelessness in having allowed so important a document to be lost, and others see no reason why this piece of marble which possessed no significance whatever should be so highly treasured.
If the piece of the pedestal with the inscription belonged to the statue, for which assumption, as we have seen, there is no reason whatever, the statue would be of a comparatively late date, but we really do not know what the plinth bearing the name “... andros” has to do with the statue.
Archeologists have discovered other heads showing a remarkable similarity in their features to the Venus of Milo. Among them is a head discovered in Tralles, Asia Minor, which shows almost the same face as the Venus of Milo. So close is the resemblance that both seem to have been made after the same model. It may be that one has been copied from the other or both chiseled from a common prototype. We here reproduce the heads of both, after half-tone pictures published by Saloman.4
Overbeck believes that the Venus of Milo is not an original. He says: “It seems permissible to doubt the originality of this composition, and to refer it back to an older original which we can no longer determine, as the common prototype of the statue of Milo and of other similar statues. For this reason there would be no objection to assigning the origin of our statue to the period of imitation. Although I deem the dependence of the statue upon an older original assured, I am disinclined to deny a certain degree of originality, but in those very features which I deem to be original are the very marks of a late revision.”
Conze5 compares our Venus of Milo with the style of the Pergamene sculptures, and in his essay on the results of the excavation at Pergamum, page 71, he calls attention to the fact that the warm tone of the skin and the sketchy method of the treatment of the hair seem characteristic of a later period, pointing out the similarity of a piece of Pergamene sculpture with the head of the Venus of Milo.
Shall we assume that this head of Tralles is older than the Venus of Milo and that we must look upon the art of Pergamum as the school in which our artist, Agesander or Alexander or whoever he may have been, drew his inspiration? We have no positive proof on either side but internal evidence speaks in favor of regarding the Venus of Milo as original, and we cannot place any confidence in the genuineness of the plinth in the Debay drawing, so may regard the statue as the work of a classical, though unknown, Athenian artist, or at least one who worked for Athens and her temples.