Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, recently expressed his admiration for the ancient Greek sculpture known as the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which is exhibited at the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Musk took to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to share his appreciation, simply writing the word "beauty" in a repost featuring an image of the iconic statue According to ANT1 News.
The post amassed thousands of reactions and reposts. Some followers pointed out that contemporary society no longer produces such remarkable works of art.
The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also known as Nike of Samothrace, is a marble sculpture from the Hellenistic period that represents the winged goddess Nike. The statue has been a centerpiece at the Louvre Museum since 1884, captivating visitors with its dynamic form and masterful craftsmanship. Standing at 3.28 meters tall with its wings, and reaching 5.58 meters when including the marble prow of the ship on which it is displayed, the sculpture is celebrated for its depiction of movement and intricate detailing.
The discovery of the statue dates back to 1863 during an archaeological expedition led by Charles Champoiseau, the vice-consul of France in Adrianople (now Edirne, Turkey). On April 15 of that year, while excavating a ravine in the northern part of Samothrace, a Greek worker exclaimed to Champoiseau, "Sir, we have found a woman!" It turned out to be half of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The pieces of the sculpture were found fragmented, and Champoiseau immediately contacted the French ambassador in Constantinople to secure the statue for France. The ambassador obtained permission from the Ottoman authorities for a French warship to transport the statue to the Louvre Museum.
Initially, the Winged Victory was exhibited without its torso and wings due to the incomplete nature of the findings. The assembly and restoration of the statue were completed in 1884, with experts reconstructing the sculpture. The right wing is a mirrored reproduction of the left, crafted by Louvre specialists, as the original right wing was found only in small fragments.
Contributions to the restoration continued and in the 1950s part of the statues right arm and palm were retrieved. Karl Lehmann and his wife, Phyllis Williams-Lehmann, leading an American archaeological expedition, discovered fragments of the right arm during excavations. A few months later, they located fingers of the right hand at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The Austrian museum had the fingers unregistered and was unaware of their connection to the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The reconstructed right hand, which revealed that the goddess did not hold a trumpet as previously believed, is now displayed separately near the statue at the Louvre.
The Winged Victory of Samothrace was created to honor the goddess Nike and possibly to commemorate a naval battle, though the specific event remains uncertain. Scholars have debated its origins, with one theory suggesting that Demetrius Poliorcetes dedicated it after defeating Ptolemy's fleet off Cyprus around 290 BCE. Another prevailing theory is that it was dedicated by the Rhodians to celebrate their naval victory over Antiochus III of Syria in 191 BCE.
Crafted separately from white Parian marble, the goddess Nike was designed to appear as though she is descending onto the prow of a ship, which was made from grayish Rhodian marble sourced from Lindos and Lardos. The composition gives the impression of the goddess just having landed, her garments swept by the sea breeze. Experts speculate that she may have been raising her hand to her mouth to proclaim victory without holding any object, or perhaps she was holding a wreath to crown the victor, or simply greeting.
The Winged Victory of Samothrace is one of three such statues found at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace. The second was discovered by the Lehmanns in 1949 and is currently exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Samothrace. The third, a Roman copy, was found by Austrian archaeologists and is displayed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.
