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The Winged Victory of Samothrace is the Louvre’s most theatrical sculpture. A marble figure of Nike, goddess of victory, she alights on the prow of a warship, wings swept back, drapery pressed against her body by a wind that seems to blow through the room. She has no head and no arms, and yet the pose is so complete that the missing parts are almost never missed.
The statue was carved around 200-190 BC, most likely to commemorate a naval victory by the Rhodians or by the Macedonian king Demetrius Poliorcetes. The figure is Parian marble; the ship’s prow beneath her is carved from grey Lartos marble from Rhodes, a deliberate contrast that sets the pale body against the dark hull. The base was originally set in a rock-cut niche on the island of Samothrace, above the sanctuary of the Great Gods, where it would have been seen from below and from the sea.
Charles Champoiseau, the French vice-consul at Adrianople, excavated the fragments in 1863 and shipped them to Paris. The right wing was reconstructed in plaster in 1879 and the left wing was cast from it in 1884. In 2014-2015 the statue was cleaned and the plaster was replaced with carved marble, and the whole ensemble was reinstalled at the top of the Daru staircase, where it has stood since 1884.
The sculptor of the Winged Victory is unknown. The work is usually attributed to a Rhodian workshop, and some scholars have linked it to the sculptor Pythokritos, who signed the Nike of Lindos. Whoever made it, the piece is the defining monument of the Hellenistic "baroque" style - dramatic, asymmetrical and designed to be seen in motion.
Samothrace was a major sanctuary where initiates were promised protection at sea, and naval dedications were common there. The statue was probably commissioned by a Hellenistic king or city after a sea battle. It was discovered in fragments in 1863 and reassembled in Paris, becoming one of the Louvre’s signature works and a symbol of victory in French public life.
Denon Wing · Daru Staircase (Escalier Daru)
The Louvre is divided into three wings — Denon, Sully and Richelieu — reached from the hall beneath the glass pyramid.
Other pieces from the same artist, period or type of object.
