Winged Victory of Samothrace

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The Winged Victory of Samothrace

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called Nike of Samothrace,^[1] is a marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory), discovered in April 1863 on the island of Samothrace (in Greek, Σαμοθρακη — Samothraki) by the French consul and amateur archaeologist Charles Champoiseau. The statue was sent to Paris the same year, and since 1884 has dominated the Daru staircase^[2] 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 Victory is one of the great surviving masterpieces of sculpture from the Hellenistic period, despite the fact that the figure is significantly damaged, missing its head and outstretched arms. By an unknown artist, (presumably Rhodian in origin), the sculpture is thought to date from the period 220 to 190 BC. Champoiseau, when he first published the Victory considered that it was erected by the Macedonian general Demetrius I Poliorcetes after his naval victory at Cyprus between 295 and 289 BC, and the Samothrace Archaeological Museum continues to follow Champoiseau's provenance and dates.^[3] 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.^[4] Certainly, the parallels with figures and drapery from the Pergamon Altar (dated about 170 BC) seem strong.

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 would date the statue to 288 BC at the earliest.

Modern excavations place the statue in a niche in an open-air amphitheater and suggest it served as an altar, within view of the ship monument of Demetrius I Poliorcetes.

The statue stands on a rostral pedestal of gray marble representing the prow of a ship, and figures the goddess as she descended from the skies to the triumphant fleet. Rendered in white Parian marble, the figure^[5]originally formed part of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. Before losing her arms, Nike's right arm was raised,^[6] either to bring a trumpet to her lips as she is depicted on coins or to crown the naval victor. The prow is made of grey marble from Lartos.

The statue has been reassembled in stages since its original discovery in 1863. The prow was reconstructed from marble debris at the site by Champoiseau in 1879 and assembled in situ before being shipped to Paris. The discovery in 1948 of the hand raised in salute, which matched fragment in Vienna, established the modern reconstruction, without trumpet of the hand raised in epiphanic greeting.

The 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. Neither the arms nor the head have been found.

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, side view

The statue shows a mastery of form and movement which has impressed critics and artists since its discovery - it is particularly admired for its naturalistic pose and rendering of the figure's draped garments, depicted as if rippling in a strong sea breeze. It soon became a cultural icon to which artists responded in many different ways. For example, Abbott Handerson Thayer's The Virgin 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 'Victory of Samothrace'."

The Victory is 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 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.

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.

[edit] Notes

^ In Greek the statue is called the Niki tis Samothrakis (Νίκη της Σαμοθράκης) and in French La Victoire de Samothrace.
^ 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).
^ 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.
^ Haskell and Penny 1981:333.
^ Its height: 3.28 m / 10.7 ft, including the wings).
^ The flex of her torso reveals the movement of her missing arm.

[edit] References

Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, 1981. Taste and the Antique; the Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (Yale University Press) Catalogue number 92.