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It's April 8th, 1820. And

1:10

another remarkable event is about

1:12

to be uncovered by Aria,

1:15

Rebecca, and Ali. The Retrospectors.

1:18

When Jogas Controtas, a farmer on the

1:20

Aegean island of Milos, was removing stones

1:22

from an ancient wall to use as

1:24

building materials on this day back in

1:26

1820, he came upon an ancient Greek

1:28

statue, but despite the fact that it

1:31

had broken into pieces, each part was

1:33

still too heavy to lift single-handed. But

1:35

fortunately, a young French naval officer by

1:37

the name of Olivier was digging a

1:39

nearby site and came to lend a

1:41

hand, and together they pulled out the

1:43

statue from the ground and stood back

1:45

to gaze upon the 2000 year-old treasure

1:47

they had just uncovered. The Venus Di

1:49

Milo came to lend a hand. The

1:51

most famous armless statue at

1:54

all time. Looks like you

1:56

need a couple of hands

1:58

over there mate. of the dig

2:00

as well, which is that Controtas really

2:03

had no interest in this statue. If

2:05

you can imagine living on this Greek

2:07

island, every time you put a spade

2:09

in the ground you're hitting some

2:11

piece of priceless ancient marble. Yeah, but

2:14

what it was used for the marble

2:16

specifically was they would melt it to

2:18

produce lime. And when Controtas found the

2:20

top half of the Venus de Milo,

2:23

he thought, this is too heavy and

2:25

the shapes, too awkward, I'm not going

2:27

to be able to melt this. basically

2:29

had to keep bribing him to dig

2:32

more while also presumably trying to

2:34

stay a bit cool and be

2:36

like oh that's a That's an

2:38

interestingish thing. I wouldn't mind seeing

2:40

a little bit more of that.

2:42

No, you know, not like, it's

2:44

not worth very much, but why

2:47

don't we just see where this

2:49

leads? Yeah. So, I mean, spoiler,

2:51

the French ended up buying it

2:53

and it's still in the loop.

2:55

So, they won, but there was

2:57

obviously going to be an international

2:59

contest, he realized, if anyone actually

3:01

worked out as he had done

3:04

what this thing could potentially

3:06

be worth. priest that was

3:08

a mate of controtus was

3:10

very interested in selling it

3:12

to the Ottoman Empire. The

3:14

French had a particular interest

3:16

though because ever since the

3:18

defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo

3:20

they'd had to return a

3:23

lot of priceless artifacts to

3:25

the original countries they

3:27

were plundered from including a

3:29

Venus that they had to give

3:31

back to Florence. So France was looking

3:33

for a new Venus. famous Venus sculpture to

3:36

the average educated person, they would have pictured

3:38

the Venus de Medici, which had been returned

3:40

to Italy from the Louvre in 1815. And

3:42

so there was this real need to restock

3:45

the Louvre. And apparently it was looking pretty

3:47

threadbare because almost all of the famous pieces

3:49

of art that people had admired in the

3:51

Louvre were looted from countries that Napoleon had

3:54

conquered. So there was a real thing. But

3:56

there was this weird period of time where

3:58

the first exhibition of the Venus de

4:00

Milo was in Controtas' barn where the

4:03

Venus was put on display. These French

4:05

officers came to look at it. And

4:07

you can tell already there's something a

4:09

bit fishy here, right? Because Voutier wrote,

4:11

some of the offices who have observed

4:14

it say that it is not that

4:16

much. Others on the country said it

4:18

is a very fine piece of work.

4:20

This is already an undercurrent here that

4:23

the fame of the Venus de Milo

4:25

isn't necessarily tied to its artistic merit.

4:27

But the French officers wanted to buy

4:29

it anyway, but they didn't have the

4:31

money or the authority to make that

4:34

kind of purchase. So they were waiting

4:36

to hear back from the ambassador, and

4:38

during this time, the Kendrotas family accepted

4:40

a rival bid from the Ottomans. And

4:43

according to the legend, the French arrived

4:45

a rival bid from the Ottomans. And

4:47

according to the legend, French arrived just

4:49

in time to intercept the statue. Like

4:51

if you picture it, it's got a

4:54

right stump of the right arm and

4:56

no left arm. But some of the

4:58

original sketches from when it was very...

5:00

first uncovered show that part of the

5:03

left arm was still intact at least

5:05

at the very beginning. Yes it sounds

5:07

like the arms weren't removed during the

5:09

process of transportation to France. But it

5:11

does rather sound like the plinth might

5:14

have been. So she was standing... Let's

5:16

stop calling her Venus because she wasn't

5:18

Venus. She was Aphrodite. Right? So it's

5:20

a sculpture of Aphrodite because she's Greek.

5:23

But the French called her Venus because

5:25

they needed an Italian sculpture because they

5:27

just lost one. But the plinth that

5:29

would have been on the original statue

5:32

would have said the name of the

5:34

artist and the year that the sculpture

5:36

was made. And the plinths... had mysteriously

5:38

disappeared by the time it got to

5:40

the Louvre as well. And it's reckoned

5:43

now that the reason for that was

5:45

because the Plinth would have dated the

5:47

statue as from between 300 BC and

5:49

100 BC, like old, proper old, but

5:52

not as admired in the Louvre in

5:54

this period, as classical work which was

5:56

200 years older than that. So this

5:58

is a statue from the Hellenistic period,

6:00

which actually makes it away more valuable

6:03

than some classical work now. But at

6:05

the time, because it wasn't as classical

6:07

as Venus as Venus Venus. they wouldn't

6:09

have necessarily wanted to both. about that.

6:12

Just one extra detail by the way

6:14

before it gets to the Louvre it

6:16

was actually presented to Louis the 18th

6:18

and because he was too obese it

6:20

was actually a year before he sought

6:23

I could just I just have this

6:25

image of him like a tiny cupboard.

6:27

You've got a beautiful new Venus for

6:29

me? I will get out of bed

6:32

this time next year and come have

6:34

a look. So he was in too

6:36

poor health to move rather than the

6:38

view from his belly was obscuring it.

6:40

I think that's right. But yeah, but

6:43

so he then donated it to the

6:45

Louvre and that's where it's been ever

6:47

since. But as I say, they didn't

6:49

want to exhibit it alongside its plinth

6:52

which conveniently went missing, which itself indicated

6:54

that... this wasn't from the school of

6:56

Praxeteles as most of the people from

6:58

the Academy of Boats wanted to say,

7:00

but actually it was by a chap

7:03

who was called Alexandros of Antioch and

7:05

he himself was obviously very skilled and

7:07

subsequent historians have found an inscription from

7:09

Thesbei in Boesia where poetry and theatre

7:12

competitions were held every five years and

7:14

and Alexandros of Antioch is actually mentioned

7:16

as a victor in singing and composing

7:18

so he was obviously a bit of

7:20

a polymath. ancient Greek triple threat. But

7:23

yeah this this plinth mysteriously vanished which

7:25

enabled the obviously somewhat biased French art

7:27

experts to say well it's probably from

7:29

about you know 400 BC and it's

7:32

probably sculpted by that famous sculptor Praxitelli's

7:34

that we've all heard of but probably

7:36

him even though obviously it's subsequently been

7:38

discovered that it's from a from a

7:41

substantially later period. But the Louve maintained

7:43

that it was a classical statue until

7:45

1951. I mean, it's hard to admit

7:47

your mistakes, you know, the longer it

7:49

goes on, the more awkward it becomes.

7:52

The other bit that surprised me looking

7:54

into it was that they reckoned that

7:56

the missing ear lobes might be because

7:58

there was jewelry on there and someone

8:01

had stolen the jewelry at some point,

8:03

sort of tombrated this skull. because that

8:05

was the valuable bit, which just, I

8:07

mean, it reminds me of our episode

8:09

we did about Toot and Carmu, where

8:12

you were saying, Arion, like, you kind

8:14

of imagine King Tut as a gold

8:16

mask, which is the death mask, not

8:18

the actual person who's underneath. It's the

8:21

same thing, isn't it? Like, I imagine

8:23

Venus of Milo as the ruined bust

8:25

that we've all seen on souvenirs. gold

8:27

earrings and that would be a totally

8:29

different look wouldn't it? And we know

8:32

that she was wearing jewelry because there

8:34

are holes in the marble which is

8:36

where the jewelry would have been affixed.

8:38

So it wasn't just a display of

8:41

the sculptor's mastery of the human form,

8:43

people... in ancient Greece would have expected

8:45

it to be decorated as well. Yeah,

8:47

well, pretty much everyone got behind the

8:49

Louvre's effort to make a big deal

8:52

of this thing. The writer, Prosper Merrimé,

8:54

for example, said, I've never seen anything

8:56

that pretty. And the sculptor Rodin rhapsodized

8:58

thou. Thou art alive and thy thoughts

9:01

are the thoughts of women. Thou art

9:03

made of truth alone, etc. etc. etc.

9:05

But Renwa was one of the sort

9:07

of few detractors detractors detractors. that isn't

9:09

controversial though, unlike the various artifacts that

9:12

we in Britain stole from the Greeks,

9:14

is that the French did pay for

9:16

it and therefore it's theirs. Like it

9:18

seems right from the beginning it was

9:21

accepted that Controtus, who was just a

9:23

peasant farmer after all, was entitled to

9:25

make money off having found this thing,

9:27

and that the French were entitled to

9:30

buy it for having bid more, and

9:32

that the price they paid, which was

9:34

6,000 francs, about 25 grand today, was

9:36

it was... a price that was deemed

9:38

reasonable by the seller and therefore there's

9:41

no campaign like there is with the

9:43

algin marbles or whatever for this to

9:45

be returned to Greece like it is

9:47

accepted now as as something you see

9:50

in France which is strange because it

9:52

it is Greek. Yeah I mean I

9:54

think actually you know the business of

9:56

who owns the stuff of classical antiquity

9:58

is quite nuanced you know if it

10:01

if you happen to go digging in

10:03

your own backyard and you find some

10:05

piece of Egyptian, actual Egyptian tat, then

10:07

it's not yours, it's humanities. So I

10:10

think there is a bit of a

10:12

fledgling campaign from the people on the

10:14

island of Milo to bring the statue

10:16

back. Yeah, I mean that only started

10:18

in 2017, but again, see it's just

10:21

another reminder that at the time of

10:23

the discovery, the Venus de Milo was

10:25

not seen as especially significant or you

10:27

know, the Greeks certainly weren't particularly attached

10:30

to holding on to her if there

10:32

was money in the offing because there

10:34

were just so many... artifacts like that,

10:36

they were being dug up pretty much

10:38

on a daily basis. And if it

10:41

hadn't been for this gigantic sustained publicity

10:43

campaign from the French authorities, then she

10:45

probably would still be a minor exhibit

10:47

at the Louvre. But an interesting side

10:50

note though is that while Venus did

10:52

leave her Greek homeland, a vouchier, the

10:54

French... naval ensign he actually stayed he

10:56

went on to become a colonel in

10:58

the Greek army during the fight for

11:01

independence from the Ottoman Empire so he

11:03

actually was left behind yeah there was

11:05

an amazing thing that I found that

11:07

he was given the assignment of laying

11:10

siege to the center of Athens without

11:12

damaging its monuments we know what you

11:14

did with the plinth mate you know

11:16

just be careful old butter fingers basically

11:18

the 1860s version of fast and furious

11:21

street racing. Yeah, yeah. Ditch the ads

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