by DK.
 | Many of us have visited museums during travels at home or abroad and we marvel at the beautiful statues, usually without thinking about how they came to be at their current locations. Many statues, heads and torsos in a lot of museums have very sad backgrounds, having been hacked off, broken off or simply stolen from their original locations in the 18th and 19th centuries and brought back to Europe as private possessions and, after the owners' deaths, willed to museums.
These days ancient statues are generally acquired either by purchase or by exchange from other museums. An exception is the heartbreaking looting by terrorists such as "ISIS" who smuggled the stolen goods out of the country and sold to dishonest, unscrupulous buyers with no conscience or respect whatsoever. However, as we stand before a statue of the modest Capitoline Aphrodite, we rarely think about how much of the statue is actually ancient and how much of it has been "repaired", i.e. parts added to it in modern times or in any case since its discovery during the past 200-odd years. The following is a summary of such modern additions to some of the many statues of the Capitoline Aphrodite in various collections and museums (in alphabetical order), originally admirably documented by Domenique Winterswijk in her Master Thesis in 2018. |
| BERLIN, Staatliche Museen | Added: Head and neck, both lower arms and hands. | ||
| DRESDEN, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen | Added: Parts of nose, the right hand, part of the left hand and fingers, right foot, back of left foor and three toes. The base is ancient but from a different statue. The entire statue has been greatly reworked in modern times in order to make details such as folds, facial features and hair lines clearer. The face has been reworked and is narrower than it originally was. | ||
| FLORENCE, Galleria Uffizi | Added: To Aphrodite, parts of nose, ears, neck, both arms, left breast, lower right leg, left thigh, some locks of hair have been added in modern times. The head is ancient, but from a different statue. To Eros: Nose, lips, right arm, part of left hand with torch, wings and penis have been added. | ||
| FLORENCE, Giardino di Boboli | Added: Head and hair, right arm, left arm and shoulder, right breast, part of left breast, area around navel, parts of both thighs, right knee and part of lower leg. | ||
| FLORENCE, Palazzo Pitti | Added: Nose, chin, fingers on both hands, right lower arm and part of upper arm, most of the left lower arm, right foot, front part of left foot. The head and neck are ancient but from a different statue. | ||
| KRAKÓW, Czartoryski Museum | Added: Head and part of neck, part of right hand and fingers, left lower arm and hand. | ||
| KYRENE, Museum of Antiquities | Added: tip of nose has been added. Fingers of right hand and left hand and wrist are missing. | ||
| KYRENE, Museum of Antiquities (statue 2) | Added: both lower legs and part of the base. Nose tip, some hair locks, the entire left arm and the right hand are missing. The head was mounted separately. | ||
| LONDON, British Museum | Added: both lower arms, right lower leg and foot, most of the left leg and foot, most of the robe, most of her hair. | ||
| LUCERA, Museo Archeologico | Added: parts of Aphrodite's foot and Eros' patera. The statue was found in pieces and it is not certain how many other parts have been added. | ||
| MADRID, Museo Nacional del Prado | Added: Nose, ends of both hands and fingers, most of the right leg, lower left leg and foot, front of left thigh. | ||
| NAPLES, Museo Archeologico Nazionale | First statue: Added: head, neck, hair on left shoulder, left lower arm and left hand, right lower arm and elbow, left ankle with part of foot, three toes on the right foot and one on the left foot, parts of her robe. Second statue: Added: Head, neck, both lower arms, both legs. Apparently only the basic torso is ancient. Third statue: Added: end of nose, part of right eyebrow, complete right arm, complete left arm and shoulder, most of the left breast. Fourth statue: Added: nose, part of the chin, the right arm, the lower left arm and hand and part of the left knee. | ||
| New York, Metropolitan Museum (on loan) | Added: "small parts of the figure’s body and hair. Additionally, the head is not original to the body, but comes from another ancient statue of the same type." | ||
| PARIS, Musée du Louvre (inv. no. MA 335, ex Borghese collection). | All modern: forehead, left eye, half of right eye, end of nose, lips, some hair locks, part of neck, right lower arm with elbow, half of left lower arm, right leg. Heads of Aphrodite and Eros have been mounted separately. | ||
| PARIS, Musée du Louvre (2, ex Borghese collection) | Added: Nose, upper lip, neck, parts of her hair, right breast, both complete arms, part of left thigh, lower left leg. The head has been mounted separately. | ||
| PARIS, Musée du Louvre (3, ex Borghese collection) | Added: lower chin, hair locks, lower half of right lower arm and hand, left lower leg, part of left thigh. | ||
| PARIS, Musée du Louvre (inv. no. MA 336, ex Campana coll. Rome) | Added: both arms, parts of shoulders and back, several toes on both feet. Modern addition of wings and right foot to Eros. | ||
| PAWLOWSK, Granduca Constantino Coll. | Added: tip of nose, part of the neck, parts of the hair and robe, probably also modern are the entire left arm, the lower right arm and the lower right leg with knee and foot. The head, which is from this statue, is mounted separately. | ||
| RIPON, Yorkshire, Newby Hall. Current location unknown. | Added: nose, some of the hair and part of the neck on the left, right arm, right lower leg and foot, two toes of the left foot. The authenticity of many other parts of the statue are the subject of much controversy: the lower left arm, the lower left leg and the knee. The head is ancient but it is from a different statue. Numerous decorative parts were added to the base: parts of the shell, part of an apple, a vine leaf and a bunch of grapes. | ||
| ROME, Galleria Borghese | Added: left lower arm, very likely also the back of the neck and the hair locks on the right. | ||
| ROME, Galleria Borghese, Giardino. | Very likely added: nose, part of the teck, part of right shoulder with upper arm, right hand and wrist, the entire left arm, the legs from the middle of the thighs downwards to the feet. | ||
| ROME, Musei Capitolini, Gabinetto della Venere | Added: nose, fingers of right hand, right wrist, fingers and thumn of the left hand, areas of the left thigh and robe. | ||
| ROME, Musei Capitolini | Added: head and arms. | ||
| ROME, Musei Vaticani, Tetto della Sala Rotonda | Many parts added including head, parts of the arms, legs and hands. | ||
| ROME, Musei Vaticani, in storage. | Added: forehead, nose, chin, neck, most of the hair, arms, right knee, part of the right ankle, noth large toes, part of the left thigh and left ankle. | ||
| ROME, USA embassy garden | Added: neck, complete left arm, both legs. | ||
| ROME, Museo Torlonia 2 statues) | Added: Both have been greatly added to with perhaps only part of the torsos being original. | ||
| ROME, Palazzo Giustiniani | Added: head, right arm from the biceps to the hand, left lower arm and hand, right lower leg with knee and foot. | ||
| ROME, Palazzo Rospigliosi | Added: head from a different statue. | ||
| ROME, Villa Doria Pamphili | Added: Head (from a different statue), neck, most of the hair, right arm from the biceps to the hand, left hand, feet with ankles. | ||
| ST. PETERSBURG, The State Hermitage Museum | Added: tip of nose, upper lip, right hand with wrist, fingers of the left hand, areas on the neck and hair. | ||
| ST. PETERSBURG, The State Hermitage Museum Inv. No 5493 | Added: tip of nose and upper lip, area of right eyebrow, hair on the right and the back of the head, both hands and wrists, toes, left ankle, sole of left foot, lower part of left leg. | ||
| SKOPJE, Archaeological Museum | Added: head, complete left arm, both feet, left lower leg, several fingers on both hands. | ||
| TRIPOLIS, Archaological Museum | Added: tip of nose, both feet. | ||
| VENICE, Archaeological Museum | Added: tip of nose, right eye, right half of forehead, upper right cheek, neck, almost all the hair and the top of the head, both lower arms and both hands, both knees, areas of bpth shoulders and both ankles. | ||