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The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace,In Greek the statue is called the Niki tis Samothrakis (Νίκη της Σαμοθράκης) and in French La Victoire de Samothrace. is a 3rd 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.
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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 figureIts height: 3.28 m / 10.7 ft, including the wings). originally formed part of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. Before losing her arms, which have never been recovered, Nike\'s right arm was raised,The flex of her torso reveals the movement of her missing arm. either to bring a trumpet to her lips as she is depicted on contemporary coins or to crown the naval victor. 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. Various other fragments have since been found: in 1950 one of the statue\'s hands was found on Samothrace and is now in a glass case in the Louvre next to the podium on which the statue stands. As with the arms, the figure\'s head has never been found. 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. This in itself would date the statue to 288 BC at the earliest.
The product of an unknown sculptor, presumably of Rhodian origin, the Victory is believed to date to between 220 and 190 BC. When first discovered on the island of Samothrace (in Greek, Σαμοθρακη — Samothraki) and published in 1863 it was suggested that the Victory was erected by the Macedonian general Demetrius I Poliorcetes after his naval victory at Cyprus between 295 and 289 BC. The Samothrace Archaeological Museum continues to follow these originally established provenance and dates.Hatzfeld pointed out in 1910 that Samothrace was in the possession of Demetrios\' bitter personal enemy Lysimachus, who would not have permitted the erection of such a monument. Ceramic evidence discovered in recent excavations has revealed that the pedestal was set up about 200 BC, though some scholars still date it as early as 250 BC or as late as 180.Haskell and Penny 1981:333. Certainly, the parallels with figures and drapery from the Pergamon Altar (dated about 170 BC) seem strong.
In April 1863, the Victory was discovered by the French consul and amateur archaeologist Charles Champoiseau, who sent it to Paris in the same year. The statue has been reassembled in stages since its discovery. The prow was reconstructed from marble debris at the site by Champoiseau in 1879 and assembled in situ before being shipped to Paris. Since 1884 it has dominated the Daru staircase
The Daru staircase leads to the statue.
The monumental Escalier Daru designed by Hector Lefuel to replace the former staircase of the Musée Napoléon was constructed from 1855 to 1857 in the Pavillon Daru, named for a minister of Napoleon III. At the fall of the Second Empire it remained incomplete; it was finished in 1883 as a setting for the Victory of Samothrace (Louvre website). displayed in the Louvre, while a plaster replica stands in the museum at the original location of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace. The discovery in 1948 of the hand raised in salute, which matched a fragment in Vienna, established the modern reconstruction — without trumpet — of the hand raised in epiphanic greeting.
The Winged Victory of Samothrace, side view
Despite its significant damage and incompleteness, the Victory is held to be one of the great surviving masterpieces of sculpture from the Hellenistic period. The statue shows a mastery of form and movement which has impressed critics and artists since its discovery. It is particularly admired for its naturalism and for the fine rendering of the draped garments. It is considered one of the Louvre\'s greatest treasures, and it is today displayed in the most dramatic fashion, at the head of the sweeping Daru staircase. The loss of the head and arms, while regrettable in a sense, is held by many to enhance the statue\'s depiction of the supernatural.
The Victory soon became a cultural icon to which artists responded in many different ways. For example, Abbott Handerson Thayer\'s A Virgin (1892-93) is a well-known painted allusion. When Filippo Tommaso Marinetti issued his Futurist Manifesto in 1909, he chose to contrast his movement with the supposedly defunct artistic sentiments of the Winged Victory: "... a race-automobile which seems to rush over exploding powder is more beautiful than the the \'Victory of Samothrace\'."
Numerous copies exist in museums and galleries around the world; one of the best-known copies stands outside the Caesar\'s Palace casino in Las Vegas. The Rolls-Royce radiator figurine, Spirit of Ecstasy, was also based on the Nike of Samothrace.[1] The first FIFA World Cup trophy, commissioned in 1930, designed by Abel Lafleur was based on the model.
This statue was a favorite of Frank Lloyd Wright and he used reproductions of it in a number of his buildings, including Ward Willits House, Darwin D. Martin House and Storer House. It also features in the novel Seven Ancient Wonders, where it is fictionally made part of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia.
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