A votive marble statuette from Apulum depicting Venus is the exhibit of the month at the National Museum of the Alba Iulia Union.
Radu Ota, Gabriel Balteș, Dan Anghel and all those involved in the research, restoration and digitization of the piece will provide the public with more information about this extraordinary discovery on Wednesday, March 8, at 11 a.m. The National Museum of the Alba Iulia Union.
Heralding the beginning of spring, the goddess of love and beauty descended from Olympus to be admired in one of her most graceful artistic poses – Aphrodite of Knidos. The marble votive statuette from Apulum depicts Venus in this famous version, a symbol image perfected by the great art of Antiquity. The cult statue of Aphrodite in Knidos represented the first monumental female nude in classical art, being made of Paros marble in the c. IV BC by the famous Athenian sculptor Praxiteles, informs a press release from the National Museum of the Alba Iulia Union.
The March exhibit is probably one of the most beautiful sculptures in Romanian Dacia. The nudity of the goddess signifies her divine birth from the sea, and the modest gesture indicates her fertility, her eternal youth through cleansing, purification and ritual rebirth, states the quoted statement.
The elegant style of rendering the anatomical parts by preserving the proportions shows us that we have before us the work of an artist, not that of a simple stone carver. We find such a technique at the Venus Colonna (Musei Vaticani) and at Afrodita Ludovisi (Museo Nazionale Romano), copies of the Roman period after the original sculpted by Praxiteles. The remarkable quality of the execution of the statuette prompts us to place it chronologically in the century. I-II BC, the sculpture reaching Apulum during the century. II-III BC, as an import piece.
The marble statuette of the goddess Venus was discovered during a preventive archaeological research carried out in 2022, in Alba Iulia (Str. Brândușei). The research team was made up of: A. Bolog, scientific manager, G. Balteș, archaeologist (National Museum of the Alba Iulia Union), N. Pâclișan, R. Bobăilă, I. Florea, masters students (Universitatea 1 Decembrie 1918 Alba Iulia) . Arriving in the restoration laboratory of the National Museum of the Alba Iulia Union, the statuette benefited from special attention from restorers Dan Anghel and Sidonia Petronela Olea. After the restoration, the goddess participated in numerous photo sessions, went through the 3D scan made by Călin Șuteu, and was the star of a presentation film made by Andrei Buta and Anca Timofan.
