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Nike Phainomeris, Winged Victory Baring a Breast
Unknown · c. 175-125 BC
A winged girl flies toward you, her heavy peplos blown back by the wind so that its overfold slips and bares one breast. Her hair is gathered in a bun of curls at the nape and held by a band, and an earring hangs from her ear. Traces of pink paint survive on the band and in stripes on the dress. This is Nike, the goddess of victory, in a type the Greeks called phainomeris, the one who shows her thigh, for the cloth flies open as she moves. The figure is moulded terracotta, hollow, with an oval vent hole in the back to let steam escape in the kiln. The wings are a modern reassembly of ancient pieces, and the fingers, the right foot and part of the drapery are lost.
The statuette comes from Myrina, a small city on the coast of Asia Minor whose cemeteries yielded thousands of such terracottas when the French School at Athens excavated them in the eighteen eighties. Engraved on the back of the wings is the signature of the coroplast, the maker of figurines. The Louvre's share of the finds arrived in 1883.
Did You Know? The maker signed his name on the back of the wings, where only the gods and the museum's curators would see it.
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