Recent Theories
The statue discovered on the island of Milo acquired a fame beyond the greatest expectations, and the intense interest taken in it frequently gave rise to bitter discussions about its history and the causes of its mutilation. Thus it happened that the authorities of the Louvre, or even the French government itself, were held responsible for the sad state of desolation in which it now appears.
Accusations were made that this venerable piece of classic art had been treated with inexcusable neglect, that important inscriptions belonging to it had been lost, and the claim was even made that the statue was whole at the time it was found. The dissatisfied parties interpreted M. Dumont d’Urville’s report in the sense that he had seen the statue whole, quoting from his description: “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.” This in their opinion meant that M. d’Urville had seen the statue complete in this posture when he bought it. The sentence which runs, “Both hands have been mutilated and are actually detached from the body,” according to this contention is to be interpreted that this must have happened before the French party delivered the statue to the Louvre, probably at the time when the French marines forced its transfer from the Turkish brig to the French warship “Estafette.”
The points raised in this discussion overlook some significant facts which if duly considered dispose of the claim that the statue was whole and unmutilated when discovered and sold to M. Dumont d’Urville. Viscount Marcellus enumerates the objects discovered in the cave and mentions fragments of the statue found in the field nearby. Could he, an eye witness, have believed that it was whole and unmutilated when he assumes that a number of separate fragments belonged to it?
It is not impossible that the quarrel between the French marines and the Turks was a regular fight; that they came to blows, but scarcely to shots. If there had been any fatalities we would have heard of it in the first report of the acquisition of the statue; but no serious wounds in the struggle are mentioned even in the later report, although in it we learn of a fight on the beach about the possession of the statue, and this later became humorously exaggerated into a battle involving drawn cutlases and a bleeding ear.
The discussion was renewed in 1912 by M. Alcard who laid much emphasis upon the testimony of Lieutenant Matterer, a comrade of M. Dumont d’Urville. He is claimed to have felt such disgust about the endless disputes on the original form of the Venus of Milo that he wished to put an end to them. He says: “When I saw the statue in the hut of Yorgos Bottonis on whose field it was found, the left arm was attached to the bust and held an apple over her head.”
This positive statement stands in plain contradiction to the older records and it seems that the imagination of the valiant naval officer played his memory a trick after the lapse of nearly half a century. Perhaps it is impossible to evolve the exact truth definitely, but it seems to me that we must not estimate these later testimonies too highly, for it would be more difficult then to explain the actual condition of the statue and its agreement with the older descriptions, than now to account for these later depositions of a few excitable and imaginative men who feel that they have something of great importance to declare. Moreover, the most important witness, Lieutenant Matterer, is characterized in these accounts as “an officer of great merit but no literary cultivation,” which does not seem to make his opinion especially reliable.
The Sunday Record-Herald of Chicago (Nov. 24, 1912) contains a summary of this later phase of the discussion as to the condition of the Venus of Milo from which we quote a few passages that in spite of the sensational character of the account may be of interest. The American reporter, relying on his French sources, says:
“The great Thiers began his start in journalism by a study of this Venus and the riddle of her arms. So when he became president of the French republic he ordered the ambassador to Greece, Jules Ferry, to make a trip to Melos and pick up local tradition. Ferry did better. He found the son and nephew still alive, Antonio and Yorgos Jr. ‘They have grown to be beautiful old men—white-bearded, ruddy, robust and bright-eyed,’ reported Ferry. ‘Examined separately before the French vice-consul at Castro they declared steadily, with minute details and explanatory gestures and poses, that Venus, when they found her, was standing upright on her pedestal, her right arm sustaining her draperies and her left arm raised and extended, its hand holding an apple.’”
I assume that the old Greek peasants spoke Greek, and so M. Ferry probably understood their meaning mainly from their “explanatory gestures and poses” which might as well have expressed their idea of the original attitude of the statue as the way in which they actually saw it.
“The popular story of the countryside also,” continued Ferry’s report, “is a tale of battle. At fifty years’ distance the recollection remains and tradition is not yet born. The discovery of the Venus Victrix, the dispute of which she was the object, the fight on the beach, the victory of the French and her final abduction violently impressed the islanders—and the impression remains.”
“The battle of the beach” is described in sensational terms. The French war-schooner “Estafette” had reached Melos in May 1820, when her commander Robert saw the Greek brig “Galaxidion” (flying the Turkish flag) anchored nearby, and to the consternation of himself and Marcellus, the secretary of the French embassy at Constantinople, there appeared on shore at the foot of the hill a crowd of Greek and Turkish sailors laboriously transporting the upper half of the statue toward that same Turkish brig. The account continues:
“The Greeks and Turks advanced slowly, changing shifts and reposing. Marcellus and Robert looked in each other’s eyes. ‘There’s just time,’ said Robert. They armed a long-boat full of marines, Marcellus and Robert with them in command, and reached the shore just as men from a Turkish long-boat came running to protect their brethren. From the hill of Castro M. Brest, the French vice-consul, was making good time to the mêlée. Cutlasses and clubs opened the dance.
“The Turks dropped the marble idol. Around Venus it was slash and parry, kick, bite, jab, gouge and roll. A cutlass takes off a Turkish ear. Enough carnage! When you fly the Turkish flag you don’t soak the sands with your life-blood for a graven image made against the law of the Prophet. The Turks pull for the brig. The French have copped the peerless one, Venus Victrix, impassive, stares past them at the white-capped sea, where she was born. Is there a faint smile of satisfaction on the lovely lips?
“The stretcher had been injured. All were excited. Hurry, the Turks may return in force! That stretcher is no good. Put rollers under the flat of the block. Pull on the ropes! Attention! The bust is slipping! Malheur, she’s on her back? Tant pis!! Now, my children, yet another effort! Good old long-boat! Embark! It was hot work, but she’s ours. Best say as little as possible about it. Monsieur le Vice-Consul, you will please to arrange the settlement of this annoying episode diplomatically!
“Negotiations lasted two days. Finally the Turkish brig ceded to the French the lower part of the statue; but when the ‘Estafette’ sailed for Piraeus. Venus bore irreparable wounds.
“So they say. Such is said to be the secret—or part of it. Among fragments of marble gathered up after the battle of the beach were debris of her arms—in particular of the beautiful left arm which MM. d’Urville and Matterer had seen entire on her shoulder, lifting the triumphal apple!”
The report of M. Ferry makes the trip from Paris to Melos worth while and may have pleased the learned president of the republic, M. Thiers. The American reporter’s account throws light on the theory suggested by the results of M. Ferry’s trip:
“Venus Victrix was received in Paris by the Count de Clarac, curator of the Louvre, then Royal Museum. Did he know of the fight? Perhaps. Was it to forestall a possible hint that a French war-ship could attack and plunder the war-ship of a friendly power in profound peace, or to prevent a dream of the impossible possibility that the marvelous statue could have been mutilated in any French hands, by accident or otherwise, that he assumes Venus to have been dug up [in its present condition]?”
The official report of Count de Clarac when the statue was received at the Louvre runs as follows:
“Bust and front have scarcely suffered from the ravages of time. They keep the velvety skin of a master of the great Greek period, who, after polishing, once more skimmed the chisel over the perfect work. But here and there are slight lesions, due, probably, to careless pickstrokes in digging her up. The shoulders have been much damaged, traces of cords indicate that she was dragged along the shore toward the Turkish brig, and in that fatal passage the shoulders and haunches were scraped and worn, several finger breadths being taken off the former.”
The fertile imagination of the account changes the Greek brig “Galaxidion” into a Turkish man-of-war so as to impress the reader that there is a diplomatic secret to be hidden which might involve the French authorities into a war with Turkey. The cause, being about the goddess of love, would be quite romantic but a war is serious enough to make the authorities wish to avoid it and prefer to cast a shadow of mystery over the whole affair.
We shall see later that the mutilations of the statue need not have originated from careless handling on the part of the French marines when they took possession of the statue.
Here is another passage which describes the nature of the injuries of the Venus statue without, however, being proof of the battle of the beach:
“The shoulder has been broken, not merely scraped and worn, by dragging. And the author of another report, M. Lange, chief restorer of the Royal Museum in 1820, specialist of vast experience and a workman to boot, notes certain exfoliations or scrapings of the left arm fragments ‘running straight up on to the shoulder of the statue, and found also on the back of the hand fragment, which show that these different parts formed one with the shoulder; and these straight scratches could only have been made, all following the same direction, when the left arm was entire!’”
This quotation is made to prove that the arm was still connected with the statue before it was scraped along the ground, but may not this scraping have taken place before it was hidden in the cave?
The Louvre’s acquisition of the Venus of Milo proved in some respects a misfortune to the Count de Clarac. Charles Lenormant, the archeologist, in a contribution to the Correspondant in 1854 mercilessly attacked the director of the Louvre and his staff, saying (as reported in the Record-Herald):
“I have always believed that from the beginning to better accredit a production which is its own best proofs, they designedly caused to disappear accessories which might derange the idea that they had just conquered a chef-d’oeuvre of the grand epoch of Greek art. Thus, besides the arms, they suppressed the debris of an inscription.”
Can we entertain the suspicion that the authorities of the Louvre purposely destroyed the inscription assumed to have been found with the debris of the Venus of Milo and that they suppressed facts or the knowledge of facts which might bear testimony against their cherished theories as to the provenience of their favorite piece of art? Scarcely! The inscription, as we have seen, was doubtless lost because nobody cared for it, for there was no evidence that it belonged to the statue.