pendent and distinct existence for so many | centuries. The Chinese Government has never been indifferent to their presence, but though it has repeatedly attempted to subjugate and absorb them, it has always failed, and at present appears to be as far from attaining its object as it was a decade of centuries ago. I. THE Venus of Milo was found in 1820, by a peasant, in a burying vault of the ancient Melos, and was then in two large pieces. There were, besides, other fragments, which had been detached from it, and the knot of hair at the back of the head was broken off in the transportation from the vault to the Turkish vessel, but was immediately replaced in its original position. In this condition it arrived at the Louvre. M. de Clarac, at that time Translated for the Living Age. From the Revue conservator of the Museum of Antique Des Deux Mondes. THE VENUS OF MILO. DURING the siege of Paris by the German army, the minister of public instruction and fine arts had the Venus of Milo taken from the Louvre and deposited in a cellar. She was brought back from this place of safety to the Museum of Antique Sculptures toward the end of last June. The official account of the process of removal and transportation, which was drawn up on the spot, states that the statue has in no way suffered; that, softened by the dampness, fragments of the plaster employed to solder together the pieces of which it is composed, have become detached, but the marble is intact. From the accounts, published by M. Dumont d'Urville, M. de Marcellus, and M. de Clarac, upon the discovery of the Venus of Milo in 1820, and upon her arrival at the Louvre in 1821, it was known that this statue was found in several pieces, that it was first shipped on a Turkish vessel, and afterwards successively on the storeship La Chevrette, on the schooner L'Estafette, and on the storeship La Lionue, and, at last, that, in the laboratory of the Louvre, the pieces were put together as they now stand. The fall of the plaster which disguised the joinings, permits us to give a more exact account of the number of divisions of the statue, and of the form and situation of the parts. It has revealed to us a notable difference between the manner in which the parts must have originally been connected, and that in which they have since been placed; a difference, still greater, between the actual equilibrium of the whole figure, and that which must formerly have belonged to it. Happily it seems possible to do away with these differences, without harming the marble in the least, and thus to give back to the statue its original appearance and expres sion. Sculptures, published soon afterwards the following description: "The statue was divided into two principal pieces, whose surfaces, where they joined, were perfectly smooth, and which were formerly united by a strong bolt. The seam, which divides it horizontally, about the middle of the body, is two inches on the right, and five on the left, below the beginning of the mass of folds which envelopes the waist (read; hips). To these two main divisions, the fragments, which formerly belonged to it, must be restored." As the adjoining surfaces of the two principal pieces are smooth and regular, we cannot suppose that they are the fragments of a statue originally made in one piece, and then, by accident, broken in two. Adhering to the terms of the description, it would not be equally impossible to believe that it was sawn asunder, perhaps with a view to facilitate its transportation. However, if we examine the adjoining surfaces, we see that they were not separated by a saw, but that they have been wrought with chisel and toothchisel, in order that they might be placed the one on the other. In fact the centre has been cut with a tooth-chisel, that is to say, rather roughly, and a little hollowed inward from the edges, which have been more delicately worked with a chisel, that the joining might be as exact as possible. It is, therefore, incontestable that the Venus of Milo is made of two blocks, first separate and then united. There are numerous examples of ancient statues showing added pieces of the same date as all the rest; but they are generally pieces placed at some extremity, where the marble was defective. By the side of the Venus of Milo we can cite very few statues of any importance, cut in choice marble and made of two nearly equal pieces. One can hardly understand how, in a country where marble, and especially Parian marble, of which the Venus of Milo is made, is so easily found in blocks as it may, if the circumstantial examination of the statue is made, now rendered possible by the fall of the plaster which filled the joinings, the consequences that have followed the insertion of these metal bolts will be easily seen. The bolts have occasioned cracks, and these cracks have been remedied in a manner which perils the solidity of the statue, modifies its character and diminishes its beauty. of large dimensions, such an artist as the author of this statue should not have taken the pains, or should not have found the means, to procure a piece of marble of sufficient size. It may be said, it is true, that the Venus of Milo did not belong to that very ancient period when they were not easily satisfied with anything, when a religious care was carried even into the choice of the materials. Executed in a broad manner, without scrupulous search The bolts holding the two blocks toafter detail, it is, according to all appear-gether, were placed in the inside of the auce, one of those works which Greek body, to the right and left of its centre, artists, at the time when art was most and near the hips. Either by the oxydizfruitful and most free, undertook without much precaution or preliminary calculations. It may be possible, also, that the author of the Venus of Milo, who has left in the rough the parts of this statue which are not easily seen, was more indifferent than many others to a material circumstance which was not likely to be felt at all in the appearance of his work. Nevertheless, one is astonished that so eminent an artist should have accepted such a circumstance; it is really a question of stability and solidity. In fact, if the two blocks were placed the one on the other without anything to hold them together, it might happen that a shaking of the earth would displace the upper block, especially in a country where earthquakes are frequent. It was necessary, then, to bind these blocks together; this was done by fastening them in the inside, not as M. de Clarac believed, by a single bolt, but by two. These bolts no longer exist, but the places which they occupied are to be seen perfectly. They were of iron and soldered with lead; traces of rust and part of the solder still remain. With the great experience which the ancients had in statues, the author of the Venus of Milo could not be ignorant of the difficulty presented by such bolts, that is, the tendency to crack the marble. To free him from this reproach, of want of foresight, which he seems to have incurred, may we not suppose that he made his Venus of a single block, that the statue was broken by accident, and that the lower block was damaged to such an extent as to necessitate restoration? It would then be the restorer, and not the author of the Venus of Milo who would have fastened the old part to the new by metal bolts. Such a conjecture would acquire probability, if it be true, as some think, that the lower part of the Venus of Milo, though very beautiful, does not entirely equal the upper part, and has not been treated with the same care. Be this ing of the iron, or by the effect of some violent shock, they have made two cracks. Thence came those fragments which it was necessary to add again to the two principal pieces. When they busied themselves, at the laboratory of the Museum, with the arrangement of the pieces of the Venus, one of them, belonging to the left hip, was not put back exactly in place; it was fastened in such a manner that they could not, without the risk of a new breakage, place one half of the statne upon the other. Instead of recommencing the arrangement, they contented themselves with interposing between these two halves, wedges, consisting of two triangles of wood, which, on the left side, would prevent immediate contact. Thus the upper half of the statue was raised, behind and at the left side, about half a centimetre; in front and at the right it rested on the under block. The result was that the upper part of the body and the head bent forward and to the right. In consequence of this deviation, the centre of gravity of the trunk was no longer in a very stable equilibrium, and a jar might occasion a fall. It must be added that the body, being thus lengthened on one side, and having no longer all the proportion nor the movement which belonged to it, it is impossible that the beauty of the figure should not be lessened. This is not all. M. de Clarac says that the seam of the two halves of the statue divides it horizontally. This seam, however, is by no means horizontal. Not only the upper half of the statue is inclined towards the lower, but the upper plane of the latter slopes in the same direction: it is higher, by nearly four centimetres, at the back and left, than at the front and right, and it forms an angle of six degrees with the horizon. Before laying one block on the other, it would seem to have been necessary, if only to ensure the stability of the upper, to make the upper surface of the lower one horizontal. It is difficult to admit that of the throat must be over the middle of the author of the Venus of Milo, if she the juncture of the leg which supports the was made in two blocks, or even he who body." Leonardo da Vinci says, morerenewed the lower part, should have neg-over, that this is the law of equilibrium lected this precaution. It may, on the for a man who is moving, or rather for a contrary, be affirmed that he who first man who is just going to move; for it is brought together the two blocks, desired properly the attitude of one who is going that the upper side of the lower one to move, to throw the entire weight of should be the exactly horizontal support his body upon one leg, thus leaving himof the upper. If this be true, in order self at liberty to carry the other forward. that the Venus of Milo may be what she Leonardo has also very well remarked that originally was, as to her attitude, she in youth, the time of strength and agility, must be raised from the right and front people naturally bear the weight of the towards the back and left, till the joining body on a single leg, while children and of the two blocks again becomes horizon- old people support themselves on both tal. In the present state of the statue legs at once. Now although the Venus of the ground on which the feet rest is hori- Milo rests upon the right foot, from whence zontal. After the straightening of the it happens, conformably to the remark of statue, which will entail the raising of the Leonardo, that her right shoulder is lower plinth, the ground will rise a little; but than her left, as she is placed it is not the that is not otherwise than quite admissi- fact that the middle of her throat is perble: examples are not wanting of plinths pendicularly over the articulation of the representing unequal ground, rising or right leg with the right foot; a vertical falling. I will only instance, among the line which passes through the hollow of plinths which represent the ground rising the throat falls much to the right and in from the back towards the front of the front of this articulation. Now, if the joinstatue, those of the Apollo Sauroctonos, of ing of the two pieces is made horizontal the hero called the Fighting Gladiator, of the (we have made the experiment upon a cast Venus numbered 157 in the Museum of the which may be seen at the Museum) the midLouvre, and of the Venus of the Capitol. dle of the throat falls perpendicularly over The plinth being raised, it would indeed the articulation of the right leg with the happen, if the two surfaces were kept par- right foot; and the statue comes again allel, that between the lower surface and under the law of equilibrium of the huthe pedestal a space would remain; but man figure. why leave this space unfilled, or the edges of the plinth with its sharp angles. There is nothing to demonstrate that the plinth should be a regular parallelopiped with six smooth sides, which is about the form it now presents. The statue straight-that, as she now stands, the Venus of Milo ened in such a manner as to render the seam horizontal, the plinth and the right foot would then take a direction which is subject to no objection. Now what happens to the whole figure? If, moreover, setting aside all statical reasoning, all recourse to the plumb line, we trust entirely to the judgment of the eye, which so often stands in place of geometry and mechanics, we shall see, is inclined more to the front and right than quite satisfies us. She leans evidently to this side, especially when we view her in profile: seen in front, from a distance, she offers a foreshortening which makes her The centre of gravity of a body must lose much of her elegance, and seems wantnecessarily fall perpendicularly upon that ing in that aplomb, that stability, which, which supports this body. If then a hu- always necessary, are particularly eminent man figure rests only on one foot, the characteristics of ancient statues. Even middle of the throat, that is to say, the the expression of the whole figure, turning space between the clavicles, which is then towards the left, and at the same time upon the same vertical line as the centre bending forward too much, does not enof gravity, falls perpendicularly upon the tirely agree with that air of calmness articulation of that foot with the leg. and security which reigns in the features "If a figure rests upon one of its feet,' "of the representations of the Greek divinisays Leonardo da Vinci "the shoulder of ties in general, and very particularly in that side will always be lower than the those of the Venus of Milo. Önce other, and the middle of the throat (la fontanella della gola) will be above the middle of the supporting leg. This will be the case from whatever point we view the figure." And besides The middle straightened, the statue presents all the appearance of perfect equilibrium and perfect stability, it takes an aspect more agreeable to the spirit and to the habits of ancient art, it is more noble and at the same time more graceful, and the expres- to put a single, imperfectly adjusted fragsion which results from the general attitude of the body no longer offers anything which is not in complete harmony with that of the face full both of majesty and sweetness. It results, with extreme probability, from the foregoing, that the trouble had come from a defect in the placing of the plinth, in consequence of the ill-managed work of restoration. Part of the plinth being broken, what remained, after having been made regular in its contour, was set into a new plinth. Now the old plinth and the new are not of the same level: the new is almost everywhere a little the lower. The top of the ancient plinth is now horizontal; that of the new a little raised in front and at the right, that is to say, at the sides where it should rather have been lowered in order to give the figure its aplomb. At the back, however, a part of the drapery, which is only rough hewn, descends several centimetres below the false plinth, in such a way that, between the false plinth and the end of the drapery there is a space filled in with plaster. Finally, the drapery covering the back of the right foot bears evident traces of modern work, which has rendered it more meagre, by terminating it at the ground with a regular edge which is thin and flat, and, in restoring the left foot in plaster, they have finished with a similar edge the fold which should cover it. We think we recognize, in both places, the work of the same hand. This hand betrays itself again in the lower half of the left leg, where it seems as if the folds of the drapery which should fail from this leg to the right foot, had been partially effaced, in order to cover, in some sort, the transition, from the breadth of execution of the upper part of the drapery, to the meagreness of its termination on the left foot. It is in this state that the Venus of Milo has been placed upon a pedestal and presented to view, the body too long on the left and behind; the trunk, the neck and the head, too much inclined to the right and front; the whole figure deviating from its perpendicular and modified in its attitude. Now, as a fortuitous circumstance has permitted us to ascertain that the statue is ill balanced, and has been changed in its proportions and its appearance, there seems an opportunity to cause it to recover its former posture, proportions, and aspect. Not only is this a possible, but it is an easy thing. In the first place, to re-establish the two halves in their just relations, it will suffice ment in its right place. The wedges, whose employment was rendered necessary by the bad situation of this fragment, will at once become needless; marble will rest squarely upon marble, and the upper part of the body will be replaced upon the lower in its primitive position. If, in trying to loosen the fragment fastened to the left hip, we meet, contrary to all expectation, with some difficulty which makes us fear to proceed lest we injure the marble, we would give up this loosening; we would confine ourselves to substituting for the wooden wedges which have been before employed, a plate of lead, of only the strictly necessary thickness, at the most two millimetres. Reduced to such limits the alteration of the proportion and attitude would be hardly perceptible. In the second place, to re-establish the whole figure in its condition of equilibrium, it will suffice to raise from right to left and front to back, the old plinth and with it all the statue, until the plane of juncture of the two halves is exactly horizontal, and then, consequently, to modify the form of the false plinth in which the old plinth is set. II. BESIDES the question of the arrangement of the existing parts of the Venus of Milo, when she arrived at the Louvre, the problem of restoration presented itself. They wished to proceed to this without delay. Quatremère de Quincy, who then enjoyed a legitimate authority in all that touched the history of art, opposed this. It was not that he disapproved, on principle, all idea of restoring ancient statues; but he thought that the Venus of Milo had made part of a group in which she was associated with Mars, and, though he founded this opinion upon the existence of like groups in several museums, he did not believe that they had the necessary elements for re-establishing the attitude of Mars, nor consequently, the position and movement of the arms and hands of the Venus herself. We may congratulate ourselves that the opinion of that eminent antiquary has been followed, and wish that it may never be deviated from. We do not mean that it would be as impossible as he believed, to divine what should be the position of the limbs which are wanting to the Venus of Milo, but, if we should succeed, it would not the less be proper to abstain from all attempts to repair and complete such a statue. I believe that Quatremère de Quincy, we might suppose, with much probability, has given the true solution of the problem said he, on account of the air of animation of the restoration of the statue discovered and inspiration which he believed he reat Milo, but he has not made it as precise and complete as possible, and he has thus left it exposed to objections, which may be dissipated by a more perfect decision about the groups of which it formed a part. Divers conjectures have been suggested for restoring the statue of Milo, on the supposition that it represented a single person, self-sufficing. These conjectures have been founded (particularly those of M. Tarral who has discussed them with much learning and taste) upon the consideration of a fragment of an arm and a hand holding an apple, which are of the same marble as the Venus of Milo, were found in the same spot, and brought to the Louvre at the same time. Adding, in imagination, these fragments to the statue, of which they supposed they were originally a part, they have presented it as an image of Venus, victorious over Juno and Pallas, her rivals, holding in her left hand the apple designed "for the most beautiful," just decreed to her by Paris. In this arrangement they find no other probable employment for the right hand than to hold the drapery, which, placed as it is, has no need of being held, and does not even offer a point where it could be. As to the fragments of the left arm and hand, supposing (though nothing proves it) that they had ever belonged to the Venus of Milo, what prevents us from explaining their presence by some ancient attempt at restoration, undertaken, when the personage with which the Venus had been grouped had disappeared, for the purpose of making use of the goddess, by reducing her to an isolated figure? Without admitting that the fragment of the arm and the hand found with the Venus of Milo had originally belonged to this statue, Emeric David inclined to see in them the debris of a restoration which must have conformed to the primitive composition; but this statue, according to him, had never been that of the goddess of Cythera. We do not find in it, he says, either the great youth, hardly exceeding the twentieth year, nor the air of great sweetness, which characterize Venus. If she held in her hand a fruit, she must have represented the protecting nymph of the isle of Melos, who sen ame appears derived from the word which, in Greek, designates apples or fruit of an analogous form, and upon whose medals a fruit very like a pomegranate often figured. Or, leaving the fragments out of the question, marked in her features, that the statue represented a muse holding in her left hand a lyre and striking it with the right. To this it may be answered, that few muses if any, are found, represented half naked and unshod, as is the statue of Milo. Others have believed that it must be a Victory, and have cited as proof, a beautiful bronze statue which forms the chief ornament of the Museum of Brescia. It is a winged female figure, stretching forth her right hand, as if to trace an inscription on a shield which she holds with her left, while it rests on her knee; she undoubtedly represents a Victory; on the other hand, in the whole attitude, and in the disposition of the peplum which envelopes the lower part of her body she offers a striking resemblance to the Venus of Milo. Nevertheless, if we closely examine the statue at Brescia, we shall perceive that the wings, inserted in the shoulders, after the rest was finished, through the tunic which covers them, and, besides, of a poor workmanship, and the shield, fastened upon the knee by means of a groove made in the folds of the peplum, are nothing but restorations. Far, then, from being a Victory, from which might be drawn an argument for applying the same designation to the statues of Milo, it is rather a Venus, which at some time or other, - probably that of Vespasian, founder of the temple in the ruins of which she was discovered, - was transformed into a Victory. A remark, made by Quatrèmere de Quincy, cuts short the divers hypotheses which have been proposed for restoring the statue of Milo, considering it as a single figure. As, at the back, the drapery is only rough hewn, evidently because the statue was to be placed in a niche, the fact that this drapery is only imperfectly finished at the left side, is, he remarked, a proof that there should be, on that side, some object, probably another figure, which partially concealed it. Moreover, the aspect of the whole figure viewed from the left side is not a happy one. It may be added that this side of the face is treated with more negligence than the other. Who was this personage? This was guessed at by comparison of several groups in which a Venus was found, very like the statue of Milo in attitude and costume, and grouped with a Mars. In them we see Venus addressing Mars and trying to persuade him to lay down his arms. It |