The Winged Victory of Samothrace - Rediscovering a Masterpiece (extrait)

The restoration project of the Winged Victory of Samothrace was supported by: Nippon Television Holdings, principal sponsor

F. Marc de Lacharrière (Fimalac), longstanding benefactor of the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art Conservation Project

The Louvre would like to thank the following organizations and people for their support of the Tous Mécènes ! campaign: the Terre de Cultures endowment fund, Koba Films, Mayoly Spindler Laboratories, Paris on the Way, the Centre Culturel Hellénique, the relatives of Lewis Childs, Philippe Forestier, Jean-Marie Lecomte, and the 6,700 individual donors.

The museum would also like to thank the Société des Amis du Louvre for its participation in the campaign.

The paper of this catalogue is produced by Arjowiggins Graphic and distributed by Antalis.

Front-cover illustration: The Winged Victory of Samothrace on the Daru staircase.

Back-cover illustration: The Island of Samothrace.

In accordance with the law of March 11, 1957 (art. 41), and the law of intellectual property of July 1, 1992, any partial or total reproduction of the present work for collective use is strictly forbidden without the publisher’s express consent. Wrongful and collective use of photocopying threatens the economic survival of the publishing industry © Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2015 © Somogy éditions d’art, Paris, 2015 www.louvre.fr www.somogy.fr ISBN Musée du Louvre: 978-2-35031-501-0 ISBN Somogy: 978-2-7572-0912-7 Copyright registration: March 2015 Printed in Italy (European Union)

THE WINGED VICTORY

OF SAMOTHRACE R EDISCOV ERING A M ASTER PIECE

Edited by Marianne Hamiaux, Ludovic Laugier, and Jean-Luc Martinez

Musée du Louvre

Authors

Jean-Luc Martinez President-Director

Marianne Hamiaux Researcher, Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre

Hervé Barbaret General Manager Françoise Gaultier Head, Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities Vincent Pomarède Director, Mediation and Cultural Programming

Editorial Team For the Musée du Louvre Publishing and Audiovisual Productions Division Laurence Castany Deputy Director Violaine Bouvet-Lanselle Head of Publishing Division Catherine Dupont Coordination and Editorial Follow-Up Gabrielle Baratella Picture Researcher

For Somogy éditions d’art Nicolas Neumann Editorial Director Stéphanie Méséguer Editorial Manager Laurence Verrand Editorial Coordinator Nelly Riedel Graphic Design and Production Chrisoula Petridis Copyediting Michel Brousset, Béatrice Bourgerie, and Mélanie Le Gros Production

Daniel Ibled Sculpture Restorer Ludovic Laugier Researcher, Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre Anne Liégey Sculpture Restorer Jean-Luc Martinez President-Director, Musée du Louvre Dimitris Matsas Ephor, 19th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, Komotini Sandrine Pagès-Camagna Research Associate, Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France Bonna Daix Wescoat Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, Emory University, Atlanta; Director of Excavations at the Sanctuary of Samothrace

Janice Abbott translated all texts, except those by Bonna Daix Wescoat, from French into English Claire Vajou translated the essay by Dimitris Matsas from Greek into French

Restoration Committee for the Monument of the Winged Victory of Samothrace Jean-Luc Martinez, Ludovic Laugier, and Marianne Hamiaux

International Restoration Committee

Restoration Team

Jean-Luc Martinez President-Directeur, Musée du Louvre

Under the supervision of Daniel Ibled and Anne Liégey Nathalie Bruhière, Christine Devos, Pascale Klein, Benoît Lafay, Véronique Picur, and Violaine Pillard

Andreas Scholl Director, Pergamonmuseum and Altes Museum, Berlin Françoise Gaultier Head, Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre Brigitte Bourgeois Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musée de France Danièle Braunstein Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre Marianne Hamiaux Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre Ludovic Laugier Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre Vassiliki Machaira Academy of Athens Dimitris Matsas Ephor of Komotini Alain Pasquier Honorary Head, Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, Musée du Louvre Bonna Daix Wescoat Emory University, Atlanta; Director of Excavations at the Sanctuary of Samothrace

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to express our sincere thanks to all those who contributed to the success of this exceptional project for the part they played both in the restoration of the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Daru staircase and in the studies and research necessary for such an operation.

Many at the Louvre took part in the project—architects, artisans, legal experts, graphic designers, engineers, project managers, and editors.

Daniel Ibled’s team of restorers worked with great skill and enthusiasm.

The Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France mobilized its resources in cooperation with the Louvre to organize a complete program of tests and analyses. The Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, in particular the Institut de Recherche de l’Architecture, also contributed to the research carried out during the restoration.

The American archaeological mission to Samothrace warmly welcomed us to the site of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, and our Greek colleagues and the École Française d’Athènes gave us their unstinting support.

We benefited from the support and sound advice of the International Restoration Committee that we had brought together.

The agency led by Michel Goutal, head architect of France’s Monuments Historiques, did everything in its power to ensure the success of the refurbishment of the Daru staircase, the largest in the museum. Tollis skillfully managed the very complex work of organizing the restoration in an area of the museum that could not be closed to the public.

We would also like to commend Bovis for its skill and efficiency in the dismantling, transportation, and reassembly of the monument, as well as Art Graphique et Patrimoine and Pyramis, the companies responsible for the digitization of the monument.

We are deeply grateful to our patrons, who made the project possible— Nippon Television Holdings, principal patron; Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière (Fimalac), historical patron of the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Bank of America—as well as to the Amis du Louvre, and the more than 6,700 individual donors who responded to the Tous mécènes ! campaign.

Our very sincere thanks also go to Élodie Agnelet, Boualem Amrane, Gabrielle Baratella, Armel Barreda, Anne-Laure Beatrix, Jean-Louis Bellec, Jean-Stéphane Beetschen, Yara Blanc, David Blanchet, Antony Becaud, Glwadys Boissinot, Stéphanie Bossé, Driss Boubou, Jeanne Bouniort, Brigitte Bourgeois, Violaine Bouvet-Lanselle, Danièle Braunstein, Nicolas Bresch, Clothilde Broust, Nathalie Bruhière, Jean Buard, Janice Abbott-Burlurut, Philippe Carreau, Laurence Castany, Aline Charretier, Joëlle Cinq-Fraix, Louise Constant, Valérie Coudin, Marie-Renée Courty, Nathalie Cuisinier, Christine Cuny, Aline Cymbler, Isabelle Deborne, Vincent Delieuvin, Anne DemarqueBazin, Catherine Derosier-Pouchous, Eric Détraz, Christine Devos, Donato di Nunno, Catherine Dupont, Virginie Fabre, Alexandre Farnoux, Christine Finance, Karine Forest, Philippe Fuzeau, Hadrien Gaillard, Valérie Game, Major Anthony Garnier, Victoria Gertenbach, Rémy Gindroz, Michel Goutal, Cyrille Gouyette, Sophie Grange, Lazare Grenier, Karima Hammache, Gaël Hamon, Didier Happe, Laurent Hernandez, Daniel Ibled, Clothilde Issert, Chase Jordan, Éric Journée, Yukiko Kamijima, Clio Karageorghis, Pascale Klein, Robin Kopp, Benoît Lafay, Hugues de Lambilly, Elsa Lambert, Alain Lasne, Marie Lavandier, Éric Lautrec, Captain Laurent Leclerc, Philippe Leclerc, Frédéric Le Coz, Serge Leduc, Sophie Lemonnier, Frédérique Leseur, Rebecca Levitan, Anne Liégey, Major Remi Liger, Vassiliki Machaira, Anne Maigret, Jean-Jacques Malmary, Georgina Maroni, Jean Marsac, Jean-Pascal Martin, Dimitris Matsas, Alexander Meyers, Christophe Monin, Florian Moreno, Kian Moussawi, Michael Page, Sandrine Pagès-Camagna, Luc Pelletier, Marcel Perrin, Pascal Perinel, Véronique Picur, Violaine Pillard, Danièle Pintor, Virginie Prigent, Céline Rebière-Plé, Maud Reynaud, Jean-Charles Rossi, Nelly Riedel, Jean-Louis Ruellan, Sophie Saint-Amans, Raphaëlle de Saint Germain, Masami Sakai, Joffrey Sauvage, Andreas Scholl, William Size, Hannah Smagh, Jenny Solis, Captain Sébastien Stempfel, Jean-Baptiste Stienne, Amélie Strobel, Anne-Laure Trémouille, Claire Vajou, Laurence Verrand, Georges Vignon, Muriel Vignon, Gabrielle Vitali, Marina-Pia Vitali, Bonna Daix Wescoat, Adel Ziane, and Antoine Zinc.

PREFACES

First and foremost, I would like to applaud the completion of the restoration and congratulate everyone at the Musée du Louvre involved in this historic endeavor. I would also like to add that taking a part in this historic restoration has been a great honor for Nippon Television Holdings (Nippon TV).

As a media company, we strive to serve the public by informing, educating, and entertaining through broadcasting. We consider ourselves a powerful transmitter of culture, and our mission does not end with broadcasting. Moreover, we regard it as one of our social responsibilities to provide opportunities for the public to enjoy and appreciate art, and also to support efforts to preserve art and culture for future generations. This is why Nippon TV made bold decisions in the past to support the Musée du Louvre in the refurbishing of the surroundings of the Venus de Milo and The Mona Lisa.

Thus, it was only natural to continue this mission by supporting the restoration of the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Nippon TV is truly proud to have played a role in restoring these three great treasures at the Louvre, which continue to inspire so many people from around the world.

Japanese people enjoy and appreciate art, just like other nationalities. When the Venus de Milo arrived in Japan in 1964, 1.72 million people went to see it. The Mona Lisa also traveled to Japan in 1974; this time, 1.5 million people patiently waited in a long line to catch a glimpse of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece. There have been numerous art exhibitions organized by the Musée du Louvre in Japan, and Nippon TV has had the honor of hosting three of them—in 2005, 2006, and 2009. The most recent one, “Les Révolutions de l’âge classique. La Peinture européenne du XVIIe siècle dans les collections du museé du Louvre” attracted 1.47 million visitors.

When I first saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace after its restoration was completed in July 2014 with my own eyes, I was deeply moved by its majestic beauty and elegance. I hope that visitors not only from Japan but from all over the world will experience the same feeling, understand the power of art, and appreciate the efforts made by specialists to maintain its beauty.

Henceforth, Nippon TV will jointly organize with the Musée du Louvre a series of art exhibitions in Japan on a regular basis, based on a partnership agreement. We are looking forward to bringing the essence of Western art to the people of Japan. Moreover, as we have been welcoming visitors from Asia to Japan recently, I believe organizing Louvre exhibitions regularly will provide great opportunities for people from all over Asia to enjoy and learn about the masterpieces of Western art.

Yoshio Okubo Representative Director, President Nippon Television Holdings

THE RESTORATION OF THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE: A HIGH POINT IN THE HISTORIC PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN MARC LADREIT DE LACHARRIÈRE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF GREEK, ETRUSCAN, AND ROMAN ANTIQUITIES

Fimalac is proud to have supported the Musée du Louvre and the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities for twenty years. This commitment, dating from the founding of my company in 1991, expresses my determination to involve the group in the development of a more harmonious society, and to commit it to community outreach and culture, particularly through the dissemination and influence of French culture. Supporting the Musée du Louvre constitutes a way of protecting, transmitting, and sharing an exceptional heritage; it is a means of propagating beauty and knowledge, and inspiring genuine admiration. It acts, moreover, as a medium for the diffusion of French excellence. Beginning with the restoration of the Borghese Gladiator and the Venus Genitrix, followed by the sponsorship of the exhibitions “Porphyre, la pierre pourpre des Ptolémées aux Bonaparte” (Porphyry, the Red Stone from the Ptolemies to Bonaparte) and “Praxitèle” (Praxiteles), and subsequently the refurbishment of the Salle du Manège, Fimalac has ensured, year after year, an exemplary partnership with the Musée du Louvre, so much so that it has become, in the words of the museum, an “historic patron.” I consider this commitment to be of crucial importance: Greek and Roman art constitutes the cradle of our civilization, and Greek sculpture occupies a fundamental place in the Musée du Louvre. Since its discovery in 1863, the Winged Victory has been a source of fascination and inspiration for generations of artists, sculptors, novelists, and poets, such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Yves Klein, Antoine Bourdelle, and Abel Gance. Today the restoration of the Winged Victory of Samothrace represents the culmination of two decades of accomplishment. I would like to express my total admiration for the Louvre teams, who, with the greatest scrupulousness, patience, and energy, have brought this exceptional project to fruition. In particular, I would like to thank and pay tribute to Jean-Luc Martinez, the president-director of the Louvre, as well as to Ludovic Laugier, Marianne Hamiaux, and Daniel Ibled. The restoration of the Winged Victory of Samothrace is a magnificent example of the Musée du Louvre’s determination to highlight the importance of a masterpiece of humanity and make it accessible to the greatest number of people.

Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière President, Fimalac

Bank of America is pleased to have partnered with the Louvre to help restore and re-display one of the world’s best-loved classical icons, the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

As a company with operations in more than forty countries, we are committed to a wide-ranging program of arts support that celebrates and promotes the arts, and importantly, creates opportunities for cultural understanding.

The Winged Victory restoration is part of our company’s unique Art Conservation Project, which provides grants for the restoration of artworks that are important to the history of art and significant to the cultural heritage of a country or region. Since the launch of this initiative in 2010, we have provided funding to museums in twenty-seven countries around the world, helping to conserve more than seventy-two projects.

We would like to congratulate the many experts who were involved in this long and ambitious program of restoration, an effort that has made it possible for the Winged Victory to be studied and admired by generations to come.

Brian Moynihan Chairman and CEO, Bank of America Corporation

When the Winged Victory of Samothrace was exhibited in the Salle des Caryatides between 1866 and 1880, it had only been partially reassembled and was still bereft of the upper part of its bust and wings— yet it inspired the admiration of scholars. It only gradually became an icon of the museum, however, after it was restored during the 1880s and transferred to the top of the Daru staircase in 1883.

Together with the staircase, which had been renovated in the art deco style by the architect Albert Ferran in 1932–34, the monument constituted a grandiose and sober ensemble that welcomed visitors as they entered the Denon wing and the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; initiated them into the magic of the palace-museum; and acted as an emblematic introduction to Greek civilization.

The monument toward which throngs of visitors now converge once stood in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods in Samothrace, a site much frequented by the pilgrims of antiquity. But the ancients approached it from a three-quarter angle and not frontally, as today. In the late 1980s, Alain Pasquier, the then head of the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, who wished to provide visitors to the Louvre with a vision of the monument more in keeping with the one experienced by visitors during antiquity, undertook a new study. At his request, as part of the Grand Louvre project, a number of simulations featuring an oblique positioning of the monument on the Daru staircase were carried out without the modern block that had been placed between the statue of the Winged Victory and its boat-shaped base during the 1930s to make it more easily visible from afar. Following these simulations, it was decided that the positioning of the monument should not be changed, but that in the event of a future restoration, the modern block should be withdrawn. While waiting for such an opportunity, the lighting of the monument was entirely modified in 1987, when, thanks to the sponsorship of EDF, the glass roof lighting installed in 1936 by the Frères Fleuret was entirely renewed.

In their search for a monumental work symbolic of the largest museum in the world to place under the Pyramid in 1989, Ieoh Ming Pei’s teams considered the Winged Victory of Samothrace, but the monument had not been created to be seen from behind and as the boat-shaped base could not be included in that setting, the project was soon abandoned.

In 2002, with the support of Alain Pasquier and Henri Loyrette, the then president-director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, in charge of Greek sculpture at the time, organized new studies with a view to restoring the monument. The double restoration of statue and staircase was finally implemented during his presidency of the museum and under his supervision, with the collaboration of Ludovic Laugier and Marianne Hamiaux, research associates in the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities.

The refurbishment was carried out by a team of restorers coordinated by Daniel Ibled with the attentive and enthusiastic advice and support of an international committee, in which I had the great pleasure of participating in my new capacity as head of the department. This book presents the results of an exemplary restoration, to which the Louvre teams as well as numerous participants from outside have contributed.

The restoration would not have been possible without our patrons: Nippon Television Holdings, Fimalac, Bank of America, and the 6,700 individual donors who joined us. Our deepest thanks go to all of them.

Françoise Gaultier Head of the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities

CONTENTS 17

The Restoration of the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Daru Staircase: The Project in Outline Jean-Luc Martinez and Ludovic Laugier

THE ISLAND OF SAMOTHRACE: HISTORY, RELIGION, AND SANCTUARY 28

The Island of Samothrace from Its Origins to the Present Day Dimitris Matsas

42

The Sanctuary and Cult of the Great Gods on Samothrace Bonna Daix Wescoat

60

The Arsinoe Rotunda and Its Remains Conserved at the Louvre Ludovic Laugier

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Evidence of the Cult of the Great Gods in the Louvre Collections Ludovic Laugier

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The Agamemnon Relief: Scene of a Samothrace Initiation?

Ludovic Laugier

THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE, FROM ITS DISCOVERY TO THE PRESENT DAY 72

The Winged Victory of Samothrace: Discovery and Restorations Marianne Hamiaux

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A Scientific Study of the Winged Victory of Samothrace Sandrine Pagès-Camagna and Ludovic Laugier With contributions by P. Blanc, A. Blanc, E. Lambert, A. Maigret, J. Marsac, and G. Verri

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The Restoration of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, 2013–14 Daniel Ibled, Anne Liégey, and Ludovic Laugier With contributions by N. Bruhière, C. Devos, P. Klein, B. Lafay, V. Picur, and V. Pillard

STUDY OF THE MONUMENT OF THE WINGED VICTORY 142

The Description and Construction of the Monument Marianne Hamiaux

164

The Context Marianne Hamiaux

174

Thoughts on the Design of the Nike Precinct Bonna Daix Wescoat

APPENDICES 182 186 189 191

Photographs of the Restoration The 3D Digitization of the Monument of the Winged Victory of Samothrace Glossary Bibliography

THE RESTORATION OF THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE AND THE DARU STAIRCASE: THE PROJECT IN OUTLINE Jean-Luc Martinez and Ludovic Laugier

Why restore a work of art? And, a fortiori, why restore a masterpiece? Prudence suggests that we should leave things well enough alone, touch nothing, keep things as they are. But then things never stay as they are, never. It is only in our memories, minds, and hearts that the icons of art history remain timeless. A work of art is a living thing on which time makes its own imprint. The constituent parts of a painting or a gilded bronze statue or a tapestry tend to return to their original state. This is less true for a stone sculpture such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace since marble weathers well, but only up to a certain point. When the Winged Victory discovered by Charles Champoiseau in 1863 arrived in Paris, it was in fragments, and was subsequently restored several times (see p. 75). Over the years, the modern metal armatures supporting the wings could have become corroded, and the distemper coatings applied in the nineteenth century to unify the original marble parts and the modern plaster additions had become oxidized and turned yellow. When this happens, it is the duty of the museum to take action to ensure that the monument is preserved.

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(preceding page) Elevation of the Daru staircase presenting the Samothrace monument without the intermediary block between the statue and the boat-shaped base.

The simulation also shows the modern pedestal, which both protects the monument and elevates it, thus displaying it to advantage.

Defining the Outlines of a Major Project The Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities had long considered undertaking a restoration of the monument. In 2002, with the agreement of Alain Pasquier, the then head of department, we commissioned a preliminary study to be carried out on the state of the surface of the marble, which was barely visible due to the layers of distemper applied during the restoration campaigns of 1864–66, 1880–83, and 1932–34. Although the surface of the marble was in no danger, its quality could no longer be appreciated. And only expert connoisseurs of Greek sculpture were able to distinguish between the white marble from the island of Paros and the veined gray-blue marble from the island of Rhodes, and this only a priori rather than because they could see it.

In 2009 a second study was carried out, this time to better understand the state of the front of the boat forming the base of the monument and to check the assembly of twenty-three blocks that made up the 27-ton ensemble. The study showed that the assembly of blocks was reversible and could therefore be dismantled if necessary, and that the positioning of some of the blocks could be improved by a few precious millimeters. Moreover, when the modern marble block that had served as a support for the statue since 1933 was analyzed, it was shown to be cracked. Although this presented no short-term danger, it was clear that the problem would have to be dealt with at some point in the future. Then there was the crucial question of dismantling the boat. It quickly became obvious that the restoration work, which was to last several months, could not be carried out on the upper landing of the Daru staircase, one of the most frequented parts of the museum, with nearly 7 million visitors a year mounting its stairs on their way to see The Mona Lisa and other masterpieces. Restoring the monument where it stood was clearly out of the question. Following discussions with the technical departments of the museum, it was decided that the Salle des Sept-Cheminées would be the ideal venue for restoring the monument since it was the nearest, most suitable, and most secure place in the museum. This room, the king’s bedchamber before it was transformed into a room for the presentation of paintings by the French School in the nineteenth century, was the ideal choice; not only is it positioned less than 50 meters from the Daru landing, but it is also very large (280 square meters) and bathed in natural light. Thus every Tuesday, the museum’s closing day, the statue and the blocks constituting the base could be gradually transferred in optimum security to the Salle des Sept-Cheminées where there was sufficient space for the restoration work to be carried out. However, it was first necessary to ascertain whether the floor of the room could support the weight of the marble monument. No less than three studies were carried out and a plan was drawn up showing how the weight could be distributed, in order to determine where the parts of the monument should be placed. Finally a plan was prepared of where to place the huge restoration cabin designed by Victoria Gertenbach, a Louvre architect.

Since the monument was to be restored away from the Daru staircase, it seemed judicious to refurbish the staircase itself at the same time. It had become rather grimy over the years and would compare very poorly with the newly restored and resplendent Winged Victory, once the latter was put back in position. The decision was easily taken: it was not possible to restore the Winged Victory on the Daru staircase, and it was clear that it would be extremely difficult to refurbish the staircase once the ancient monument was back in place. So we seized the opportunity of doing both restorations at once, and the project became a double one.

The Restoration of the Daru Staircase Michel Goutal, the chief architect of the Monuments Historiques, assisted by the architect Jean-Baptiste Stienne, undertook an exhaustive study of the state of the staircase, taking into

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account its entire history. The monumental staircase designed by Hector Lefuel during the Second Empire had gone through a number of phases. In 1883 Félix Ravaisson-Mollien decided that the monument should be installed on the upper landing of the staircase. The Winged Victory thus welcomed visitors entering the museum through an entrance hall situated near the bottom of the staircase. Edmond Guillaume, the architect of the Louvre and the Tuileries, then designed the setting for the Samothrace monument and began work on it in 1892. Because of the controversy it rightly or wrongly provoked, the decor, consisting of vault mosaics and vividly painted walls in keeping with the “Beaux-Arts” style dear to the nineteenth century, was never completely finished. Work recommenced on the staircase in the 1930s, during the vast reorganization of the Louvre undertaken by Henri Verne. This time the architect Albert Ferran considerably modified the approach of Edmond Guillaume; in 1932–33 the steps were widened and the cross-bar railings replaced by ones in the art deco style (see pp. 82–83, figs. 60–61). Most importantly, the mosaics were masked with wallpaper painted to resemble stone. The completely historicist ornamental grammar of the nineteenth century disappeared in favor of a more pared-down aesthetic. Sober to some, boring to others. So what should now be done about the decor? Guillaume’s decor was still there; the multicolored mosaics decorated with Victories holding palms and the portraits of great men lay intact beneath the faded wallpaper. It was very tempting to reveal this past, but it would have meant putting together two virtually irreconcilable stages in the staircase’s history: the art deco steps and railings, and the shimmering decor of the previous century. It would, moreover, have been impossible to restore the latter in its entirety. It was therefore decided to restore the staircase in its 1930s state. Two modifications were considered, however: Ferran had moved the monument 1 meter forward on the landing to improve the view from the bottom of the staircase. Today, however, there is insufficient space around the monument, so it was decided to move the monument back toward the wall; the boat-shaped base of the Winged Victory needed to be protected, since it was frequently touched by visitors who do not realize that the blocks of the plinth are also ancient, and so innocently sit down on them (see p. 155). The idea of a protective barrier to keep visitors at a distance was mooted—and ten different sketches drawn up—but rejected on the grounds that visitors could get their legs caught in it when the museum was particularly crowded. An alternative way of protecting the monument was to heighten it by placing it on a modern 60-centimeter-high pedestal. Also at stake was the crucial issue of the slightly cracked modern block between the Winged Victory and the boat base: if this block were removed, the monument would be restored to its ancient form. A new pedestal would thus not only protect the boat, but also compensate for the loss of the modern block, and the statue would once again reign in splendor at the same height at the top of the staircase. The overall impression created by the numerous simulations carried out was satisfactory, both when standing directly in front of the statue and from the bottom of the staircase. To conserve the unity of the architectural setting of the monument, the pedestal designed by Michel Goutal was covered in Carrara marble, as were the steps and the floors of the landings.

Another question was whether the monument should now be presented on the Daru staircase from a three-quarter angle, as had been the case in the sanctuary of Samothrace.

The simulations carried out in 1985 at the request of Alain Pasquier, the then head of the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, were not conclusive. This begged the more general question of how to restitute the context of a work that had been moved into a museum. Was there indeed any sense in attempting such a restitution, at least in a material sense? Should the architectural environment of the monument in the sanctuary be evoked? There is no doubt that it would have been extremely difficult to restitute the exact

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THE GREEK WORLD IN THE SECOND CENTURY BCE

KINGDOM OF MACED (Antigonid dynasty)

Mediter

CYREN

ARMENIA

BITHYNIA

M DONIA

Samothrace

A

Pergamon

eg

ea n Se

a

ATTIQUE

KINGDOM OF PERGAMON (Attalid dynasty)

Athens Paros

GALATIAN TERRITORIES

Side KINGDOM OF SYRIA (Seleucid dynasty)

RHODES

ranean Sea

NAICA

KINGDOM OF EGYPT (Ptolemaic dynasty)

EGYPT

I THE ISLAND OF SAMOTHRACE: HISTORY, RELIGION, AND SANCTUARY

THE ISLAND OF SAMOTHRACE FROM ITS ORIGINS TO THE PRESENT DAY Dimitris Matsas

In the northern Aegean, only the high pyramid-shaped massif of Mount Athos is as imposing as the mountain mass of the island of Samothrace (fig. 1). The two sites, moreover, have played a similar historical role: during antiquity, Samothrace was the island of the initiatory cults of the Great Gods, with rituals promising “γίνεσθαι καὶ εὐσεβεστέρους καὶ δικαιοτέρους καὶ κατὰ πᾶν βελτίονας ἑαυτῶν τοὺς τῶν μυστηρίων κοινωνήσαντας” (“that those who communed with the mysteries would be protected when at sea, would be able to become more pious, more just, and be able to go farther in all things” 1); in later times, Mount Athos became the “Holy Mountain” of Orthodoxy. 2 What distinguishes Samothrace is not only the morphology of its mountainous massif, but the very particular atmosphere of the island conjured up by so many ancient names: Lefkosia, Lefkania, Lefkonia, all derived from the adjective lefkos (white). 3 As Strabo wrote, 4 the origin of the name of Samothrace (“Θρηϊκίη Σάμος”: “Samos of Thrace”) is probably linked with its high mountain 5 rather than with the Samian origins of the second wave of colonists who, according to written sources 6 and archaeological evidence, 7 arrived on the island in the second quarter of the sixth century BCE, following the first wave of Aeolians in the seventh century BCE. There is no natural harbor on the 180-square kilometer oval island, and until very recently travelers had difficulty landing there.

THE ISLAND OF SAMOTHRACE FROM ITS ORIGINS TO THE PRESENT DAY

(preceding page) Fig. 1. The island of Samothrace and Mount Fengari seen from the north

3•

6 •4 •5•

•2 Fig. 2. Samothrace: map of the island 1. Village of Chora 2. Port of Kamariotissa 3. Hamlet of Paleopolis 4. Sanctuary of the Great Gods 5. Ancient city 6. Gattilusi towers 7. Cape Phonias tower 8. Cape Kipos 9. Mount Agios Giorgios 10. Mount Fengari 11. Site of Mikro Vouni 12. Vrychos hill

Fig. 3. Vase from the Neolithic period discovered at Mikro Vouni, second half of the fifth millennium BCE; the belly is decorated with a human face

Fig. 4. Minoan clay sealing discovered at Mikro Vouni, nineteenth– eighteenth century BCE: hieroglyphic offering formula

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12 •

•1

•7 •9 • 10

11 •

•8

Kamariotissa Bay is situated on the north side of Cape Akrotiri 8 to the west of the island.

Today it is the only port and embarkation point for the island. Indeed the isolation of the island long resulted in a very static autarkic economy with a basic agricultural production of olives and cereals in the southwest where almost all the island’s arable land is concentrated. 9 Until very recently the islanders earned their living almost exclusively from agriculture and breeding livestock. 10 Their language, containing elements from both Aegean-Pelasgian and Thracian linguistic groups, stands out as unique among the dialects of Modern Greek. 11 At Mikro Vouni on the southwest coast of the island, there is a tumulus of a prehistoric, inhabited site (Late Neolithic, Early Bronze Age, and Middle Bronze Age up to about 1700 BCE), approximately 1 hectare in size. The excavations carried out on this tumulus provided the first data on the prehistory and proto-history of the island. For the Late Neolithic (mid-sixth millennium to the beginning of the fourth millennium BCE), the constructions indicate three different phases, whose pottery belongs to the same tradition (fig. 3). For the last phase of Late Neolithic, that is between the layers of Late Neolithic and early Bronze, the carbon 14 datings have revealed the same absence of occupation as elsewhere in the Aegean. The Middle Bronze 2 layers (19th to 18th centuries BCE) contained a number of objects in clay from the archives 12 of a Minoan palace (probably Knossos); this was the first time that such objects were found so far from Crete. Trade, based on the acquisition of metal, was behind the palace enterprise of the Minoan settlement in Samothrace and in the northeast Aegean. A Linear A inscription is one of the first examples we have of the use of this writing outside Crete. 13 Seal impressions 14 bearing the first part of the hieroglyphic offering formula 15 may perhaps be an indication that religious ideology played a role in the economic activities of the Minoan elite 16 (fig. 4).

Three architectural phases can be identified for the constructions of the Middle Bronze Age. The pottery found for this period indicates that the interaction between Crete and Samothrace seems to have developed very slowly. Although the importation and imitation of Minoan vases declined, these vases did have a significant influence on local ware. As elsewhere in the northeast Aegean, during the Middle Bronze 1 period, the local material culture continued along the lines of Ancient Bronze 3 with no influence from

Crete. In Middle Bronze 2, the local pottery traditions continued, but importations from Crete began, and Minoan and Minoan-inspired shapes appeared in the local productions.

In the Middle Bronze 3, known as a “hybrid” 17 period, there was an explosion of new shapes and a decline in Minoan influence alongside an increase in the number of links with other regions in the Aegean.

The absence of occupation observed at Samothrace during the Late Bronze Age is perhaps linked with the same archaeological context, which led to the abandonment of sites of the Troy VI/VIIa period on the south coast of the Marmara Sea and the Gallipoli Peninsula. In eastern Bulgaria we note a change in the type of habitat during the transition period between the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. Phase VIIb2 at Troy was characterized by a decisive change in civilization, contrary to what happened in northwest Bulgaria, at Rhodope, and in central Macedonia, where the transition from the Bronze to Iron Age was progressive and without any significant rupture except at Kastanas. 18 Herodotos notes that in ancient times Samothrace was inhabited by the Pelasgians who initiated the mystery cults of the island, 19 and that during the Iron Age two Thracian tribes appeared: the Dardanoi and then the Saians. The ancient names of the island— Dardania, Saonissos (island of the Saians), and Saokis 20 —are associated with these tribes.

At Samothrace, the habitation sites of the Iron Age are in very steep areas far from the coast. The existence of a new population (dating from the twelfth century BCE?) has been noted in this high area between 400 and 600 meters, on sites which have all the characteristics of fortified places of refuge. At first these new inhabitants of the island settled in the area near the south beach of the Bay of Pachia Ammos 21 (Thick Sand), where the remains of a fortified enclosure, of a megalithic tomb, and of seven circular structures and one rectangular construction have been identified. Subsequently this population lived in a mountainous area covering a southeast/southwest arc. Excavations have been carried out in the northwest extremity of this arc, in the area surrounding the Vrychos hill, situated to the west of the village known today as Chora. The pottery found in this area can be dated to the long period from the ninth to the seventh century BCE,

Fig. 5. Chora, Vrychos hill: remains of a cyclopean-type fortified enclosure

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THE SANCTUARY AND CULT OF THE GREAT GODS ON SAMOTHRACE Bonna Daix Wescoat

Introduction: The Gods, the Cult, and the Place The small island of Samothrace—windswept beacon of the northeastern Aegean— rises dramatically from the sea to the summit of mile-high Mount Fengari (fig. 1).

Touchstone to sailors and haunt of gods, Samothrace was the geographic and mythic fulcrum between the Black Sea to the east and Rome to the west. From its lofty peak, Poseidon the earth-shaker watched the Trojan War (Homer, Iliad, 13.10–22).

Here, Zeus coupled with the Titaness Elektra, the Shining One, to bring forth the Samothracian mythic family of Dardanos, Aetion, and Harmonia. Dardanos journeyed east to become the founder of the Trojan people; his descendant Aeneas would go forth to create the Roman people. Kadmos of Phoenicia came to Samothrace looking for his sister Europa, and instead found Dardanos’ sister Harmonia, whom he abducted and later married. And Dardanos had a brother Aetion (or Iasion), also of Samothrace, who seduced the earth goddess Demeter at the wedding of Kadmos and Harmonia, bringing forth Plutos (wealth). For his transgression, he was immolated by a thunderbolt from Zeus, although later stories treat him more kindly, even having Zeus instruct him in the way of the mysteries of the Megaloi Theoi, or Great Gods.

THE SANCTUARY AND CULT OF THE GREAT GODS ON SAMOTHRACE

(preceding page) Fig. 17. The sanctuary seen from the top of the theater

Fig. 18. Samothracian bronze coin; obverse: Athena; reverse: seated Great Mother.

Archaeological Museum, Samothrace

Fig. 19. Samothracian bronze coin from Samothrace; obverse: Athena; reverse: ram’s head and Hermes’ caduceus. Archaeological Museum, Samothrace

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The fame of the island emanated from this mystery cult of the Great Gods, whose rites of initiation promised protection at sea and the opportunity for moral improvement.

Many heroes sought initiation in the mysteries when passing this place: the Argonauts en route to the Kolchis and the Golden Fleece, including Jason, Orpheus, and the Dioskouroi; Herakles (Diodoros), and by some accounts, Odysseus and Agamemnon, too, found success in their endeavors because the Samothracian gods appeared to them.

What sticks with us in these stories is the idea that this small, rocky, and wind-swept island must have possessed a deep mythic resonance such that it could be the ancestral place of the powerful non-Greek peoples, the Trojans, and that from the same foreign stock would come a youth capable of coupling with Demeter, the great goddess of the Eleusinian mysteries. The stories are rooted in journey, both physical and metaphysical, a fitting mythological backdrop to the journey, physical and spiritual, which later pilgrims made to Samothrace to become initiated into the cult of the Great Gods.

Who exactly were the Great Gods? This question remains one of our most confounding mysteries, not least because the Greeks themselves seem to have only a rather vague idea of them. To Herodotos they were the Kabeiroi. One Hellenistic source names these gods Axieros, Axiokersa, and Axiokersos, equating them with the Eleusinian triad, Demeter, Persephone, and Hades. To these a fourth is often added, Kasmilos/Kadmilos, who resembles Hermes. Ancient sources also say that the Kabeiroi are Dardanos and Aetion, or that they are Zeus and Dionysos. Only two kinds of divinities are represented with any consistency on coin images, a Kybele-like Great Mother and a Hermes through his symbols, the caduceus and the ram (fig. 19). A great female goddess with two male assistants best matches the range of evidence. At least by the Hellenistic period, a powerful connection was forged with the twin gods, the Dioskouroi, who also provide divine protection at sea (fig. 45).

Even today the Sanctuary of the Great Gods1 has the unmistakable aura of sacred ground. Set on the northern shore of the island, nestled deep in a cleft at the base of Mount Agios Giorgios—spur of the great Mount Fengari, framed by three converging torrents and opening toward the sea, the Sanctuary of the Great Gods physically integrates the divine natural forces that played a fundamental role in the initiation rites called the mysteria. The Samothracian mysteries were said to be second in fame only to those at Eleusis. Initiation was available to people of all ethnicity, class, and gender. Only those who had not atoned for a blood crime were prohibited. As at Eleusis, there were two levels of initiation, myesis (the closing of the eyes, or blindness) and epopteia (viewing).

Unlike Eleusis, at Samothrace the pilgrim could undergo both levels of initiation in the same visit. The rituals of initiation were held in silent trust by the community of initiated. From ancient texts we glean that the rites took place at night; that they were conducted in an archaic language; that the ithyphallic status of Hermes played a central role; that the prospective initiates likely underwent the Korybantic rite of thronosis; and that perhaps some kind of sharing of personal secrets took place. There was a search in the dark for the abducted Harmonia, and joyous dancing when she was found.

The Samothracian mysteria were not restricted to a festival calendar but were held continuously during those months of April through October, when safe travel to the island was possible. The sea journey was challenging but the prospective rewards an infinite blessing, for initiation secured protection at sea and the opportunity to “become both more pious and more just and better in every respect than before” (Diod.Sic. 5.48.4– 50.1). As tokens of the ordeal, initiates received a magnetized iron ring and a purple

sash. At least from the second century BCE, those who were so inclined had their names inscribed on marble stelae or other blocks to commemorate their experience (fig. 44).

From these and other inscriptions we learn a great deal about the clientele of the cult, which came chiefly from the surrounding areas of northern Greece, coastal Asia Minor, and the Aegean islands. The names of many Romans appear in the lists, attesting to the broad reach of the cult in the period when Rome gained hegemony over the Greek world.

In addition to the mysteria, there was also an annual festival, which likely was in honor of Dionysos and also celebrated in the sanctuary, although evidence for the latter is mainly inference. Cities sent delegation of theoroi (ambassadors) to participate in the festival, as a way of binding diplomatic ties between the cult and the many places from which initiates came. Although one could only become initiated on Samothrace, cult halls honoring the Samothracian gods, Samothrakeia, sprang up across the Aegean and up into the Black Sea. Here, initiates could gather with their fellows, much as fraternal societies gather even today.

Fig. 20. Sculpted coffers from ceiling of the Hall of Choral Dancers.

Archaeological Museum, Samothrace

Fig. 21. Reconstruction of the sanctuary seen from the east. Model by Bonna Daix Wescoat, Kyle Thayer, and J. Matthew Harrington

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THE ARSINOE ROTUNDA AND ITS REMAINS CONSERVED AT THE LOUVRE

Fig. 38. Parapet block, ca. 280–270 BCE. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Fig. 39. Block from a wall crown (epikranitis), ca. 280–270 BCE. Musée du Louvre, Paris

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The vast rotunda dedicated by Queen Arsinoe (ca. 316–270 BCE) at Samothrace was undoubtedly one of the most imposing monuments of the labyrinth of sacred buildings in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. The monument might have been commissioned by the queen between approximately 279–270 BCE, when she was married to Ptolemy II, or more probably as early as 299–281 BCE, when she was the wife of King Lysimachos.

The biggest rotunda of the Greek world (2 meters in diameter) was constructed from Thasian marble on deep limestone

foundations. Its most striking feature was the vast inner space, which most certainly surprised all visitors. At the upper level of this ambitiously high building there was a blind gallery with no real windows, decorated with various motifs connected with the cults practiced in the sanctuary.

Several carved blocks were sent to Paris following the excavations carried out at Samothrace by Vice-Consul Charles Champoiseau in 1863, 1879, and 1891 (fig.

38), and also by the archaeologist Georges Deville and the architect Ernest Coquart in 1866 (figs. 39, 40 and 41).

The Louvre houses two fragments of a block decorated with a frieze of open or closed palmettes alternating with open lotus flowers, taken from the epikranitis, the smooth drum of the rotunda. The frieze is surmounted by a leaf and dart molding, in turn crowned by a thin cavetto. This ornamentation, though fairly standard, was carved with care. As was often the case in Greek architecture, the decorative motifs were enhanced with color; when the blocks were restored in 2014, Véronique Picur discovered some hitherto undetected remains of red and yellow ocher.

The upper part of the drum was designed as a blind gallery with Doric pilasters on the outside and half-columns surmounted by Corinthian capitals on the inside.

Several pieces from this illusionistic decor are now in the Louvre. The parapet between the pilasters is decorated with large rosettes flanked by almost skeletal boukrania (bull skulls) (fig. 38), which in turn are adorned with a garland of sacrificial wool and stand out against a drapery. They may evoke the red sashes worn by initiates in the cults of the Great Gods of Samothrace.

The cornice gutter of the roof was decorated with a fine acanthus foliated scroll (fig. 42) punctuated with leonine gargoyles.

The roof was adorned with tiles ending in an antefix embellished with an open spearhead palmette flanked by volutes (figs. 40 and 41). The large akroterion that crowned the rotunda was restored in the first century CE following the earthquakes that damaged the roof in the early imperial period, and since then its ornamentation is extremely sober, consisting of superimposed laurel leaves. The decor of the rotunda shares a number of features with those of other buildings, such as the great Temple of Apollo at Didyma and the Temple of Leto near Xanthos. In the third century BCE, it was probably the same workshops involved in these prestigious projects.

Ludovic Laugier

Fig. 40. Antefix, ca. 280–270 BCE. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Fig. 41. Antefix, ca. 280–270 BCE. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Fig. 42. Fragment of a cornice gutter block, ca. 280–270 BCE. Musée du Louvre, Paris

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EVIDENCE OF THE CULT OF THE GREAT GODS IN THE LOUVRE COLLECTIONS Ludovic Laugier

The mystery cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace was one of the most celebrated of the ancient Greek world (see p. 42). It is therefore not surprising that many vestiges of the cult were discovered in the island’s sanctuary, including religious buildings for initiatory rites as well as numerous ex-votos, the most important of which was, of course, the Winged Victory. Other less important remains connected with the cult of the Great Gods were found in the sanctuary and in neighboring necropolises, some of which were brought back to Paris by Charles Champoiseau. They are now conserved at the Louvre alongside works linked to the cult of the Great Gods from other regions of the Greek world.

EVIDENCE OF THE CULT OF THE GREAT GODS IN THE LOUVRE COLLECTIONS

Fig. 43. Herm pillar: Hermes or Great God (?), Samothrace, imperial period.

Musée du Louvre, Paris

(above and preceding page, detail) Fig. 44. List of initiates into the mysteries of the Great Gods of Samothrace, ca. 160–80 CE. Musée du Louvre, Paris (opposite) Fig. 45. Votive relief dedicated to the Great Gods, Larissa, Thessaly, second century BCE. Musée du Louvre, Paris

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The artifacts bearing representations of the divinities linked with the mystery cult of the Samothrace sanctuary include coins (see figs. 18 and 19), clay figurines, and even some statuettes. The Louvre has a small herm pillar discovered by Charles Champoiseau in the necropolis situated “between the precinct of the Winged Victory and the Propylon of Ptolemy” 1 (fig. 43). This modest statuette, which was probably sculpted during the imperial period, might well represent Hermes, since from the end of the Archaic period the god was invariably represented as a phallic pillar surmounted by a head with long hair and a beard. But in the context of the cults celebrated at Samothrace the herm might also have been associated by its owner with a Kabeiroi god, especially Kadmilos, assimilated with Hermes (see p. 44). This was the interpretation suggested by Champoiseau as early as 1892, when he presented a cast of the herm during a session of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 2 A votive relief discovered far from Samothrace, at Larissa in Thessaly, and now in the Louvre, features a particularly interesting image of the Great Gods 3: it depicts a theoxenia, a banquet offered to the gods to render homage and grace (fig. 45). Danaa, the dedicant, stands to the right of the banquet couch and greets two horsemen flying above the couch. The dedicatory inscription identifies them as the Great Gods, here portrayed like the Dioskouroi, the twin gods Castor and Pollux. They are accompanied by a flying Victory holding a crown. The most likely interpretation is that the two heroes helped a relation of the dedicant win a victory. The relief, which is dated stylistically to the second century BCE, shows the importance of the cult of the Great Gods in mainland Greece, especially in Boeotia and Thessaly, and also how they are frequently assimilated to the Dioskouroi, especially from the Hellenistic period onward.

Nineteen of the Greek inscriptions in the Louvre come from Samothrace. They form part of the abundant epigraphic documentation providing information on the initiates in the cult of the Great Gods. These texts also mention the citizens who were theoroi— officials sent to the island from different cities, and the proxenoi, intitiates who, on their return to their native cities, represented the sanctuary of the Great Gods. And we learn from the texts that the sanctuary was visited by Greeks from all over the world. Even the limited number of epigraphic documents in the Louvre mention visitors from Elis, Thasos, Paros, Myrina, Samos, Cos, Chios, Magnesia, Aegae, Philippi, Byzantium, and Rome, including citizens, freed slaves, and slaves. This was characteristic of the cult of the Great Gods of Samothrace, one of the most open in the Greek world.

A more complete inscription is of particular interest (fig. 44), for it gives a list of the initiates who had come to Samothrace from the neighboring island of Imbros, 4 and who mainly consisted of cleruchs (colonists from the city of Athens) led by their chief, Socrates. The inscription mentions the two degrees of initiation into the mysteries of the Great Gods. The list notes that there were mystes—those who had been accepted into the myesis, the first degree of initiation, when a story and certain sacred symbols were revealed to them—and the epoptes, those who had reached the second degree, the epopteia, or contemplation. Since some of the names were known from other sources, the document dates from around 160–80 CE. The stela is both a list of initiates and an offering, for beneath the list of mystes and epoptes, there is a dedication to the Great Gods of Samothrace inscribed within a large crown of laurel leaves.

A relief from Cyzicus given to the Louvre by William Waddington in 1852 might well evoke the initiates to the mysteries of the Great Gods of Samothrace. It has certainly given rise to a great deal of discussion (fig. 46). 5 This naiskos monument, dated stylistically

II THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE, FROM ITS DISCOVERY TO THE PRESENT DAY

THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE: DISCOVERY AND RESTORATIONS Marianne Hamiaux

The Discovery: 1863–64 In 1862 Vice-Consul Charles Champoiseau (1830–1909) (fig. 48) was given temporary responsibility for the consulate of Adrianople in the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Edirne, Turkey). While on a tour of inspection, he learned from the inhabitants of Ainos (modern-day Enez, on the Aegean coast of Turkey) that the nearby island of Samothrace abounded in antiquities. A brief visit to the island was enough to spark the enthusiasm of this amateur antiquarian, and he immediately requested permission from the French Ministry of Public Instruction to conduct excavations on the island.

His request was granted and he was allocated the modest sum of 2,000 francs to cover the expenses of the excavations. On March 6, 1863, he set out to explore the chaotic ruins, hoping that he would find some fine objects to send to the Musée Impérial in Paris, and thereby attract the attention of Napoleon III. 1

THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE : DISCOVERY AND RESTORATIONS

On April 15, 1863, Champoiseau spotted the fragments of a marble sculpture—the right section of a female bust—at the far end of the western terrace where his workers were trying to unearth the great portico. He asked the men to start digging in the area of the fragment and they soon found the body of a large female figure nearby, together with numerous fragments of drapery and feathers. Champoiseau was immediately struck by the sculptural quality of the body fragment, describing it as clothed in “sheer marble muslin pressed by the wind against the living flesh.” The workers continued digging in the hope of disinterring the head and arms of the statue, but these were never found. However, they did unearth a number of huge, rather strangely shaped blocks of gray marble, which Champoiseau believed had formed a funerary monument (fig. 50), consisting of an overturned sarcophagus framed by Egyptian-style pylons. The drawing he made of the place where he had discovered the statue reveals the amateur archaeologist in him (fig. 51).

Champoiseau did not remove any of the large gray marble blocks from the site but promptly arranged for the various parts of the statue—which he rightly supposed to be those of a winged Victory—to be sent to Paris, along with other fragments he had found in the sanctuary. The consignment was taken down to the coast and loaded onto the ship of the French ambassador to Constantinople. From Constantinople it was sent to Piraeus, and from there transported in an Imperial Navy ship to the arsenal in Toulon, where it remained for six long months, while different government ministries argued about who should pay for the antiquities to be sent by train “at slow speed” to Paris. On Fig. 48. Charles Champoiseau in 1863 (preceding page) Fig. 49. First attempt to reassemble the monument in a courtyard of the Louvre, December 1879

Fig. 50. The funerary monument imagined by Champoiseau.

Archives des Musées Nationaux, Paris Fig. 51. Plan of the Winged Victory edifice and drawing of the blocks of the base

by Champoiseau. Archives Nationales, Paris

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Fig. 52. The Winged Victory in the Salle du Tibre

May 11, 1864, the statue finally arrived at the Louvre where it was entrusted to the curator of antiquities, Adrien de Longpérier. The journey from Samothrace to the Louvre had taken no less than a year.

The First Restoration: 1864–66 Longpérier was immediately convinced that the statue was worth exhibiting and set about making it look presentable. The block constituting the body and measuring 2.14 meters from the upper torso to the plinth was positioned on a stone pedestal with the best vantage point from the left, in three-quarter profile. The right side of the body was stabilized by means of an iron bar. Many fragments of drapery were fixed back onto the surface, and the fold of drapery that streamed out behind was recomposed from numerous broken pieces and also reattached. This extremely delicate reconstruction was carried out by Enrico Penelli, the restorer of the vases in the Louvre’s Campana collection. These were the 118 “pieces” from which, according to a longstanding, though

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A SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE Sandrine Pagès-Camagna and Ludovic Laugier With contributions by P. Blanc, A. Blanc, E. Lambert, A. Maigret, J. Marsac, and G. Verri

In preparation for the restoration campaign undertaken in September 2013, the Winged Victory of Samothrace was dismantled and moved from its place on the Daru staircase to the Salle des Sept-CheminĂŠes, where a series of tests and analyses were conducted in the autumn of 2013 and throughout the following months on the statue itself and the blocks of the boat-shaped base. The methodology employed involved observation and imagery techniques (multispectral, X-ray, and binocular) and microsampling (analyses of the marble, structural analyses of certain compounds).

These tests and analyses proved to be of crucial importance: the results were taken into account in decisions regarding the restoration, in particular the cleaning of the marble; they also provided important information on how the ancient monument had been created and assembled.

X-Ray Study of the Structure of the Wings and the Rear Section of the Cloak of the Winged Victory An X-ray study was carried out in order to understand how the wings and the rear section of the cloak had been restored 130 years ago, and to determine the present state of conservation of the modifications. An assemblage of twelve X-ray films

A SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE

(preceding page) Fig. 70. Placement of X-ray film onto the left wing of the Winged Victory

(35 × 43 centimeters, weighing 780 grams each) protected by a lead backing was prepared to cover the total surface of each wing. During the irradiation the whole assemblage, weighing approximately 9.4 kilograms, was kept suspended and in contact with the wings by a support system (fig. 70); the same kind of support system was used for the section of the cloak billowing behind. Preliminary tests were made for each wing and for the rear section of the cloak. The composition differences between the wings and the cloak section and their variable thicknesses meant that specific settings had to be used; the latter were obtained by varying the following power and duration parameters. The instantaneous development of the X-rays by C2RMF meant that we were able to validate the selected parameters in order to examine each part in one go.

All the exposures were performed with a tube at a distance of 2.6–2.8 meters, and a voltage of 100–120 kilovolts; the exposure time lasted between two minutes for the cloak section and four minutes for the left wing.

The Left Wing: A Virtuoso Puzzle (fig. 71)

Fig. 71. X-ray photographs of the left wing

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The X-ray photographs revealed the composite nature of the wing, showing that it consisted of metal tenons and rods, a number of dense marble fragments, and filling materials between the fragments.

A metal armature reinforces the wing and links it with the body. The numerous fragments of the marble wing are maintained by seventy-three dowel pins and mortises of varying length and section (most are cylindrical, with a clean-cut section, and 2–7 centimeters long). The imagery did not reveal the exact composition of the metal used.

Other dowel-pin holes, empty this time, are visible in the central part of the wing. Here, the darker density of the X-ray can be explained by the thinness of the stone (about 2 centimeters, measured by D. Ibled). Plaster plugs fill the gaps between the blocks, and the feathers are reconstituted in plaster. The feathers at the tip of the wing are also reconstituted in plaster, and reinforced by a U-shaped metal armature. The latter are in plaster like the ones lower down, which are also reinforced by a metal rod.

Five holes, all 13 millimeters in diameter and unaligned with the present support armature, might correspond to a different modern assembly.

The two series of holes on the back of the left wing of the Winged Victory are linked to two distinct reassembly phases and two different support armatures: —The empty 13-millimeter dowel pin holes are linked to a first reassembly carried out shortly before 1880, when the wing was probably presented in a showcase near the body of the statue, as suggested by Otto Benndorf. 1 These holes therefore probably indicate the existence of a first support armature.

—The used dowel-pin holes are those made during the reassembly of 1880–83 supervised

by F. Ravaisson-Mollien for the installation of the armature, which is still in place today.

—Furthermore, on the upper part of the wing there are four dowel-pin holes, all about 6 millimeters in diameter, suggesting that other sculpted parts were added there during antiquity (see p. 112–14).

The Right Wing: Plaster and a Herringbone Armature The right wing of the Winged Victory is modern (fig. 72); it was designed by Félix Ravaisson-Mollien in 1880–83. The X-ray photographs reveal that the plaster used for the wing material is not very dense, that it has a herringbone internal structure, and that the wing contains metal parts. An armature that is thinner than the one in the left wing acts as the link with the body of the statue (two bars measuring 35 millimeters compared with 55 millimeters for the left wing). Three small metal rods (16–20 centimeters) overlap the horizontal bar. Five large rods (45–90 centimeters), which are perpendicular to the horizontal bar, reinforce the internal structure.

Fig. 72. X-ray photograph of the right wing

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THE RESTORATION OF THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE, 2013–14 Daniel Ibled, Anne Liégey, and Ludovic Laugier With contributions by N. Bruhière, C. Devos, P. Klein, B. Lafay, V. Picur, and V. Pillard

The restoration of an ancient sculpture involves an encounter with the artistic genius of the ancients; the restoration of a Greek sculpture completed during the nineteenth century necessitates taking the work’s second life into account; the restoration of a masterpiece of the Louvre means keeping in mind the deep affection everybody feels for it. Restoring the Winged Victory of Samothrace involves all three considerations.

The restoration, envisaged for a long time and preceded by preparatory studies in 2002 and 2009, presented numerous problems and challenges, as well as providing an opportunity for deepening our understanding of the work. It was not only essential to conserve the integrity of the work of the Greek sculptor and recover the original color of the marble, but it was also important to respect the modern history of the sculpture and the form given to it in the nineteenth century, when it was reassembled from the numerous surviving fragments. We knew that we had to be constantly on the alert, to be ready to react to any unexpected observations, to let the work speak for itself and reveal more of its secrets to us. We were also aware that our successors might one day wish to take up the work of restoration again, and consequently our work had to be reversible so that any choice they might wish to take would not be impossible.

The nineteenth-century restoration of the monument of the Winged Victory was carried out in several phases (see p. 75) and is representative of the history of the restoration of antiquities, or to be more precise, it materializes several stages of that history. From the 1850s onward, museums no longer completed works with their missing parts—in contrast to what had been practiced in the aristocratic collections from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Between 1864 and 1866, Adrien de Longpérier decided to limit his reconstruction of the statue to the surviving fragments, and to keep to a strict minimum the completion of what was missing (fig. 52, p. 75).

Several missing elements from the bottom of the left leg were remade in Carrara marble.

THE RESTORATION OF THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE, 2013–14

(preceding page) Fig. 88. Removal of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, September 10, 2013

These additions are the last examples of the employment of tasseli, the Italian technique so commonly used in previous centuries. But when Ravaisson-Mollien and his son reassembled the wing and the upper torso in 1880, they remade the missing elements in plaster (fig. 58, p. 80) rather than marble, the former being elements suppler and easier to manipulate, and also less expensive. Another advantage was that the plaster parts were taken from a cast, which meant that it was not necessary to smooth the breakages on the ancient marble. The guiding principle governing the restoration of 2013–14 was that the entire history of the monument, both ancient and modern, should be respected; this entailed restoring one of the most brilliantly baroque statues of the Hellenistic period to its original splendor, while keeping in mind the second life of the monument during the modern period. The present silhouette of the statue is largely the result of the work of Félix Ravaisson-Mollien, who was himself profoundly influenced by the contemporary debates and studies of his time. The Winged Victory is not only a chef d’oeuvre of Greek art, but also, in some ways, a masterpiece of the nineteenth century.

The recent restoration involved taking the monument apart, thus providing an admirable opportunity for studying the vital relationship between the Winged Victory and the boat where the right foot of the goddess alights. For this it was necessary to keep in mind the restoration carried out in the 1930s.

Between 1932 and 1934, the Daru staircase was entirely renovated as part of the general reorganization of the Louvre carried out under Henri Verne. The boat was moved toward the front of the landing, and its renovation continued. In 1933 Captain Carlini convinced the Louvre curator Étienne Michon to reconstitute the prow of the ship in such a way that it was placed much higher than before. This reconstruction had two problematic effects: first, it meant that when the monument was viewed from the front, the legs of the statue were hidden by the ship, and secondly it resulted in confusion between the combat deck and the flat edge of the ship (see p. 84, figs. 62 and 63). An intermediary modern block was therefore inserted to solve these two problems: to heighten the statue in relation to the prow, while giving the impression that the missing combat deck was actually in place. However, this arrangement rapidly became obsolete, since Carlini’s theory of how to restore the prow had never been universally accepted and was totally abandoned a few months later. The arrangement finally chosen and still visible today was to place the front part of a much more correctly shaped combat deck in plaster at the right height. The modern intermediary block however, which was probably difficult to remove, was left in place beneath the statue.

When this issue was discussed before the committee of international experts who were regularly consulted during the renovation, it was decided that the Winged Victory should be placed in direct contact with the prow where she was alighting. The profile of the ship’s combat deck was thought to be generally satisfactory (see p. 85).

The considerations outlined above were discussed at length by the committee, and became the guidelines for the restoration works carried out between September 2013 and June 2014.

Taking Down the Statue The sculpture was taken down on September 10, 2013 (fig. 88). The equipment necessary for dismantling the statue and the boat-shaped base was provided by Bovis Fine Art. 1 It consisted of a 7-meter-high double scaffold that was placed in parallel on each side of the boat, and which supported two beams capable of levering a charge of 3 tons each. The beams were equipped with hoisting trolleys for moving pieces back and forwards, and also with 2-ton-load-capacity hoists. The statue was maintained by cradle slings that passed under the

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modern stone base, and to ensure maximum security, a horizontal jack was placed at waist level in such a way that it did not touch the wings and exerted no pressure on the drapery.

Once the lifting system was perfectly regulated, the statue was raised by means of the two hoists, and placed first onto the front part of the boat, and then onto a flat board on a supporting structure. It thus became possible to transport the statue from one landing of the Daru staircase to another, higher one, from where it was moved on a roller belt into the Salle des Sept-Cheminées, an operation that involved taking down two doors in the Louvre. Once the statue had been installed in the renovation cabin specially set up in the Salle des Sept-Cheminées, 2 the work of dismantling the boat could begin.

Fig. 89. Drawings of the blocks of the base of the monument. Missing sections in gray.

Drawings by V. Foret

Dismantling the Boat Dismantling the base of the Winged Victory of Samothrace was a difficult if necessary process, but it also provided a great opportunity to find out more about the monument.

It would have been impossible to renovate the base in its usual place on the Daru landing, since over 7 million visitors a year walk up the majestic staircase. The base was therefore dismantled and transferred to a specially designed renovation cabin in the nearby Salle des Sept-Cheminées. It took six weeks to take down the twenty-three blocks comprising the base of the monument—a total of 27.5 tons of marble—as well as to make the necessary arrangements for the ten-month-long renovation project in the Salle des Sept-Cheminées, to examine the blocks with the C2RMF (see p. 95), and to clean them. In addition, precise diagrams of the blocks were drawn up by N. Bresch, a Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) architect. When dismantling the boat, it was vital to keep in mind both how it had been initially constructed and its present incomplete state of conservation (fig. 89). The arrangement and shape of the blocks play a fundamental role in the stability of the whole monument. Block A3 is kept in position by the weight of blocks B5 and B6, while the latter, as well as blocks B1 and B4, are maintained by the weight of the upper course of the base and the statue itself. Some of the blocks have considerable cantilever volumes (B1 to B6, B8 and A3). To avoid all risk of displacing these blocks during the dismantling operation, we supported them with tubes, jacks, and planks (fig. 90), thus distributing the weight more evenly and consequently making the system more secure. Since the shape of block A3 resembled the volume of the keel, it was supported with a RenPaste® SV 36 / HV363 epoxy key form, which perfectly matched the underside of the block. This key form was supported below with a wooden wedge on jacks.

The cement joints between the blocks, and the missing parts between blocks C1/ C4,C4/C5,B6/B7, and B7/B8, which had been remade in different materials (plaster, lime

Fig. 90. Dismantling of the boat forming the base of the monument, prow block propped up

Fig. 91. Dismantling of the blocks of the boat

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III STUDY OF THE MONUMENT OF THE WINGED VICTORY

THE DESCRIPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE MONUMENT Marianne Hamiaux

The Statue 1 In ancient Greece, the tradition of personifying concepts such as Justice (Themis), Vengeance (Nemesis), Good Fortune (Tyche), and Peace (Irene), and representing them in the form of a goddess was well-established. The most ancient and probably the most original of these personifications was Victory (Nike). From as early as the Archaic period we have representations of the goddess Victory portrayed as a winged young woman in a long garment, descending from the skies to crown those who have won a victory at the games or in battle, making a libation to thank the gods, or flying across the world to spread the news of a victory (fig. 118). In the spirit of the Hellenistic period, the Winged Victory of Samothrace is true to this tradition: the statue is carved from Parian marble (see p. 100), the finest Greek marble for sculpting statues, and represents a draped woman with a powerful body and outstretched wings alighting on the prow of a ship.

THE DESCRIPTION AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE MONUMENT

(preceding page) Fig. 118. Ancient black-figure oinochoe from Ritsona, attributed to the Athena Painter, Archaeological Museum, Thebes

Fig. 119. Detail of the overfold of the chiton (right-hand page) Fig. 120. Drapery of the chiton

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The Drapery The goddess wears a chiton, or tunic of fine cloth, belted under the breasts and falling to her feet (fig. 119 and 120). The universal praise for the virtuoso treatment of this flowing garment, which reveals more than it conceals, is amply justified. The tight fabric on the stomach and the left thigh is run through with thin sinuous bands that seem to skim over the skin beneath, whereas on the left thigh and the right side the material is gathered into narrow streams of tight, almost graphic folds. The cloth falls freely over the front of the left leg, where the surface incisions create an effect of light crumpled drapery. The superb treatment of the drapery is illusionistic, and in no way reined in by reality. For example, the bottom part of the drapery falling over the thighs is folded back up (fig. 119 and 120): the tunic is secured by a first belt, and then, to shorten it, is pulled up to form an overlap which in turn is secured by a second belt visible beneath the breasts. The sculptor did not worry himself about producing a realistic representation of the different belts and layers of fabric over the stomach, the part of the statue where he seems to have most accentuated the flow and delicacy of the garment. Then there is

Fig. 120 145

THE CONTEXT Marianne Hamiaux

A Votive Offering 1 The monument of the Winged Victory was one of the countless offerings, some impressively large, dedicated in the sanctuary of Samothrace. The Kabeiroi, or Great Gods of Samothrace, were very ancient fertility gods, renowned for the spiritual blessings they brought to initiates in the mysteries, but also for the protection they offered to those in danger. Sailors caught in storms and warriors in battle would tie a crimson sash around their waist for luck and call on the “gods of the Mysteries� to help them triumph over the grave dangers facing them. The statue of a Victory standing on the prow of a warship was therefore a most appropriate offering for this sanctuary, and we can reasonably assume that it was dedicated to the gods by the triumphant victor of a naval battle. Other examples of this kind of offering include the ship from the Monument of the Bulls at Delos, and the model of a ship found in a building built on the other end of the west terrace at Samothrace (see figs. 36 and 37, pp. 58 and 59), which may well have been dedicated by Antigonos Gonatas after the Battle of Cos in the 3rd century BCE.

THE CONTEXT

(preceding page) Fig. 148. Frieze of the Gigantomachy from the Great Altar of Pergamon, detail: Athena striking down Alkyoneus, ca.180–160 BCE, Pergamonmuseum, Berlin

The Lost Dedicatory Inscription Champoiseau was an amateur archaeologist and only produced an approximate sketch of the place where he found the Victory in 1863 (see p. 74, fig. 51). The archaeological context of the monument was moreover totally disrupted during the excavations he subsequently conducted in 1891 to find the head of the statue. The diagram of the area published by Hauser in 1880 provides a more faithful picture, but it is incomplete and difficult to interpret. Although the excavations conducted in the twentieth century have not enabled us to establish a clear and unambiguous interpretation of the structures still visible (see p. 174), recent studies have definitively ruled out both Karl Lehmann’s 1873 hypothesis that the statue formed part of a fountain and Heiner Knelle’s 1995 2 theory that the monument of the Victory stood high above a theater built lower down.

The complex structure of the Winged Victory and the excellent state of conservation of the marble surface give the impression that it was in some way protected from bad weather, and we can also assume that it bore a clearly visible dedicatory inscription durably engraved in the stone. This inscription would have included the name of the donor and the circumstances surrounding the erection of the monument—a traditional way of ensuring well-deserved fame in the future for the donor and perhaps more indirectly for the sculptor as well. For apart from constituting an act of piety toward the gods, such indeed was the purpose of these prestigious offerings in the great sanctuaries.

The dedicatory inscription of the Winged Victory has never been found. Such inscriptions are invaluable for they constitute the indispensable and surest tool when we attempt to interpret, attribute, and date a work (if it had not been accompanied by a dedicatory inscription, who would have thought that the Victory of Olympia was the work of a sculptor from the north of Greece, and that it had been offered by the inhabitants of Nafpakyos and Messene following their participation in a battle during the Peloponnesian War?). In addition to the absence of a dedicatory inscription, we have no record left by a writer from antiquity describing the sanctuary, its buildings, and its offerings, such as those by Pausanias for other important Greek sites.

So scholars had few clues at their disposal when they first began to try to date and attribute the Winged Victory. Starting from the principle that the statue was dedicated following a sea victory, the base in the shape of a ship now became the key to all historical and artistic analysis of the work

A Rhodian Monument 3

Fig. 149. Fragment of a small base with the end of a name, second century BCE (?).

Musée du Louvre, Paris

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In 1904, while leading a team to explore the ruins of the sanctuary of Athena on the acropolis of Lindos in Rhodes, the Danish archaeologist Karl Frederik Kinch came across a large number of statue bases made of a gray-blue marble from the neighboring quarries of Lartos. He also discovered the blocks of a base shaped like a ship (fig. 150), which immediately reminded him of the base of the Louvre’s Winged Victory of Samothrace: the blocks of the Winged Victory then, were hewn from this gray-blue marble peculiar to the island of Rhodes.

Thirty years later a German scholar, Hermann Thiersch, attributed to the Winged Victory a small fragment of plinth (fig. 149), which Champoiseau had found in 1891 in the building housing the Victory and had been sent to the Louvre. This fragment, also in Lartos marble, is engraved with a name ending in S, followed by the demonym “SSSSSS” (Rhodian). Thiersch made the brilliant deduction that the complete name might be that of the sculptor Pythokritos of Rhodes, whose signature is to be found on many statue bases conserved at Rhodes: the implication was that the Winged Victory had almost certainly been

Fig. 150. Base in the shape of a ship’s prow, ca.

265–260 BCE (?).

Temple of Athena, Lindos of Rhodes

sculpted by Pythokritos. Since the sculptor’s career is dated to between 200 and 165 BCE, Thiersch concluded that the Rhodians commissioned the monument of Samothrace from Pythokritos in commemoration of a naval victory they had won during those years.

Thiersch had numerous victories to choose from: the inhabitants of Rhodes possessed an excellent fleet and participated actively in the constant battles waged at the time between the Hellenistic kingdoms of Pergamon, Antioch, and Macedonia, conflicts in which the Romans were eventually to intervene. Thiersch himself thought that the monument probably commemorated the battles of Side and Myonnesos of 190 BCE, which led up to the defeat of Antioch by Pergamon at Magnesia ad Sipylum in 189 BCE. After this, Rhodes, allied with Pergamon, briefly became the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean. Thiersch concluded that it was shortly afterward, in the second decade of the second century BCE, that the Rhodians commissioned the great offering of the Winged Victory in the sanctuary of Samothrace. In 1938 the epigraphist Christian Blinkenberg demonstrated that the prow was typical of a Rhodian ship, referred to as a trihemiolia in the inscriptions found on the island, thus confirming the thesis that the monument of Samothrace had not only been carved by a Rhodian sculptor, but had also been dedicated by the Rhodians themselves.

Henceforth, the statue of the Winged Victory came to be considered the finest example of the Rhodian school of sculpture during the Hellenistic period, a school that was eloquently analyzed in 1955 by the great art historian Margarete Bieber. After the bronze workers of the island had created the astonishing Colossus of Rhodes in the third century BCE, the important and influential Rhodian school of sculpture continued to flourish both in Rhodes itself and in other regions, as testified by the signatures of numerous sculptors. The names of several of them are associated with the Laocoon group found at Rome, with the Farnese Bull, now in Naples, and with the frieze depicting the

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THOUGHTS ON THE DESIGN OF THE NIKE PRECINCT

Fig. 158. The enclosure of the Winged Victory seen from the north

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Originally, the Nike was set in a deep niche cut into the hillside above the theater and adjacent to the stoa (fig. 158). From this excellent vantage point, the monument could be seen from the stoa, theater, and key places in the heart of the sanctuary.

We would expect a statue as splendid as the Nike to be enshrined in an equally fine architectural frame, but the building is surprisingly unelaborated by Samothracian standards. Unlike the many marble buildings in the sanctuary, this monument was built of pebbly, calcareous sandstone that would have been covered with plaster.

The rectangular structure, approximately 13.4 by 9.55 meters at the foundations (fig. 159), today rises only to the level of the second step, but cuttings and weathering indicate there was at least a third course or step as well.

Within the monument, the statue was set at an oblique angle against the back wall. This position had ideological and visual advantages. By facing into the sanctuary, the statue brings victory across the temenos, while being seen up close to best advantage in three-quarter view. The surviving packing for the base indicates

Fig. 159. Map showing position of the precinct of the Winged Victory.

Drawing by John Kurtich

that the socle of the statue was about flush with, or slightly higher than, the third course of the monument (fig. 159).

Earlier scholars suggested the building was divided by a cross wall, but the evidence for it seems to be conflated with a cluster of large boulders in this area.

A retaining wall of basalt boulders framed the monument on the three uphill sides. The current wall belongs to the

Roman period, and along the southern side, it runs right on top of the monument.

Excavations in search of the original Hellenistic retaining walls have thus far been fruitless.

Observing traces of water erosion, Karl Lehmann, who conducted the first systematic excavation of the precinct, fixed on the idea that the statue originally stood in a fountain (although his co-excavator, Jean

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THOUGHTS ON THE DESIGN OF THE NIKE PRECINCT

Preserved packing for foundation course

Preserved packing for foundation course

Section A1: Actual state

S blocks Foundation course

Existing ground level Third foundation course

Section B1: Actual state

S blocks Foundation course

Section A2: Actual state with statue base as drawn by the Austrians

Undocumented course proposed by the Austrians

Section B2: Actual state with statue base as drawn by the Austrians Proposed third step Second step First step Reconstructed ground level

Proposed third step Second step First step Reconstructed ancient ground level

Section A3: Reconstructed section

Section B3: Reconstructed section

Proposed third step Second step First step Euthynteria First foundation course Second foundation course Third foundation course

Fig. 160. Longitudinal section and cross-section of the monument, showing the relationship of the base of the statue to the foundations of the monument.

Drawing by John Kurtich and C. Pavel 176

Fig. 161.Reconstruction and section of the precinct of the Winged Victory as a fountain.

Drawing courtesy of American Archaeological Expedition on Samothrace.

Charbonneaux, disagreed). The discovery of a section of terracotta pipe emerging from the hillside above the precinct seemed to offer further confirmation. Lehmann proposed a two-tiered arrangement consisting of a higher southern chamber for the statue and a lower northern chamber filled with water and picturesquely strewn with boulders, to give the impression that the Nike alighted on the ship as it passed between dangerous rocky shoals (fig. 161).

In some versions Lehmann restored a peribolos wall framing the statue on three sides. In the unpublished sketch of the reconstructed fountain shown here, the third step of the upper chamber becomes a parapet framing the east and west sides of the lower chamber.

Although a captivating proposal, the fountain setting must be abandoned. The supposed basin is not lined with hydraulic material, the water channel was caused by post-antique erosion, and the pipe above the monument belongs to a system that brought water to the stoa.

Having rejected a fountain setting, we are now at something of a loss to replace it with an equally elegant alternative. The most pressing question remains the most basic: was the Nike set within a covered naiskos

or was she framed by an open peribolos?

Even with the discovery that many of the ashlars from the Nike Monument were reused in a Byzantine building on the intermediate western terrace has not proven decisive, for all the fragments are simple ashlars that could belong to either kind of structure. The remains of a small corner cavetto preserving plaster, as well as a plaster ovolo, clearly belong to the monument but these, too, could crown a peribolos wall or a building. The ornamental plaster fragments shaped like a lion’s head waterspout follow functioning examples belonging to roof design, but they also appear on the walls of fountains. More suggestive of an enclosed space are the very few fragments of blue and white plaster shaped with drafted margins, a technique which at Samothrace is generally reserved for interior design. We could also mention the freshness of the surface of the statue.

Given the state of our current research, we continue to consider both the covered and the open alternative (fig. 162). As we move forward, we hope to sharpen our understanding of the architectural frame in which the Nike was set and how it shaped the visitor’s experience of the statue.

Bonna Daix Wescoat

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THOUGHTS ON THE DESIGN OF THE NIKE PRECINCT

Fig. 162. Hypothetical reconstruction of the precinct of the Winged Victory as a naiskos or peribolos. Drawing by Chase Jordan

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APPENDICES

TAKING THE MONUMENT DOWN In September 2013, erection of scaffolding, removal of the statue, and dismantling of the boat block by block

WORK IN THE RESTORATION CABIN Examinations and analyses of the monument by the teams of the C2RMF, the Université de Paris VI–Pierre et Marie Curie, and the Courtauld Institute; cleaning tests and work on the fillers by the team of restorers

THE REASSEMBLY OF THE MONUMENT Transport and positioning of the blocks of the boat; installation of fillings and integration of new fragments.

REINSTALLATION OF THE STATUE Transfer of the Winged Victory on its new metal support

THE 3D DIGITIZATION OF THE MONUMENT OF

Point cloud

Texturing in progress

THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE (ART GRAPHIQUE ET PATRIMOINE)

3D image

Real image