Museum to reunite Venus statue with head

Yahoo / AP ^ | Tue Jun 13, 9:23 PM ET | Giovanna Dell'orto

[SunkenCiv]

For the first time in possibly 170 years, a Roman marble statue of Venus will be reunited with its head as both are coming to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, where conservators will piece them back together... A private collector in Houston, Texas, agreed to sell to those who purchased the body at the auction the head as well, which was last documented attached to the body in 1836. The head sold for about $50,000. The 4-foot-6-inch statue is a marble copy from the late 1st century A.D. of an earlier Greek bronze sculpture, which many scholars argue is the most widely reproduced female statue in antiquity... The statue dates from a time when Roman emperors were reviving all things Greek from literature to the arts. It probably stood next to a fountain or pool in the gardens of a wealthy villa somewhere in the Roman Empire, possibly in today's France, where the statue was first documented in the collection of Napoleon's art adviser in the 1830s, Gaunt said.

[SunkenCiv]

Shh! No one had noticed that yet...

Besides, Helen Thomas doesn't resemble Venus so much as Uranus.

[kudos to me for combining two of the most common jokes on FR; women, children, and minorities hardest hit]

[SunkenCiv]

Snickers? No, that's not Venus, that's Mars. ;')

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, BL, those pics were marble-lous.

[SunkenCiv]

All the public nudity in the ancient world must have taken some of the edge off the lack of most of the things we now regard as part and parcel of civilization.

Hey, I can't try to be amusing in every post. ;')

[Knitting A Conundrum]

No doubt modern life has its compensations....

[BJClinton]

Badum ching!