Nike of Samothrace Bronze Statue
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SKU: P7106
The Nike of Samothrace, also called Winged Victory Nike Statue is meticulously crafted in cold cast bronze, the mixture of bronze powder and cold cast resin. More details... |
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Product Details
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Statue height: 10 3/4"
The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace, is a third century B.C. marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory). Since 1884, it has been prominently displayed at the Louvre and is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world.
Modern excavations suggest that the Victory occupied a niche in an open-air amphitheater and also suggest it served as an altar, within view of the ship monument of Demetrius I Poliorcetes (337-283 BC). It stood on a rostral pedestal of gray marble from Lartos representing the prow of a ship, and represents the goddess as she descends from the skies to the triumphant fleet. Rendered in white Parian marble, the figure originally formed part of the Samothrace temple complex dedicated to the Great Gods, Megalon Theon. Before she lost her arms, which have never been recovered, Nike's right arm was raised, cupped round her mouth to deliver the shout of Victory. The work is notable for its naturalistic pose and for the rendering of the figure's draped garments, depicted as if rippling in a strong sea breeze, which is considered especially compelling.
The statue's outstretched right wing is a symmetric plaster version of the original left one. As with the arms, the figure's head has never been found, but various other fragments have since been found: in 1950, a team led by Karl Lehmann unearthed the missing right hand of the Louvre's Winged Victory. The fingerless hand had slid out of sight under a large rock, near where the statue had originally stood; on the return trip home, Dr Phyllis Williams Lehmann identified the tip of the Goddess's ring finger and her thumb in a storage drawer at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, where the second Winged Victory is displayed; the fragments have been reunited with the hand, which is now in a glass case in the Louvre next to the podium on which the statue stands.
The statue now stands over a supplementary platform over the prow that allows a better contemplation but was not present in the original. The different degree of finishing of the sides has led scholars to think that it was intended to be seen from three-quarters on the left. A partial inscription on the base of the statue includes the word "Rhodhios" (Rhodes), indicating that the statue was commissioned to celebrate a naval victory by Rhodes, at that time the most powerful maritime state in the Aegean.
Content provided by Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_Victory_of_Samothrace
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Nike of Samothrace Bronze Statue
