Sunday, September 7, 2003

Alarming art history fact of the day

The Venus de Milo was discovered in Florence in 1820 in a pile of marbles destined for a lime kiln. J.: "So basically some worker happened to look down and said 'Hey, this one looks nice, let's keep it'?" Me: "Apparently." J.: "So they could've burned her arms the week before."



Yikes. Never mind the burning of the Library of Alexandria...how much Greek and Roman marble statuary was incinerated without a thought, without malice, as just another heap of raw material for a furnace?

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