The Hand of Eros

The Hand of Eros

Visitors pause, perplexed, before this little hand resting delicately on an intact back. Having just admired the Venus de Milo, they come to this body of another fragmented, mysterious goddess (Sully, room 344). I watch a woman walk around it several times, stop in her tracks, snap a picture of the back, and then stand lost in thought a long time after reading the label. Crouching Aphrodite, also known as The Venus of Vienne, was found on the banks of the Rhône in Sainte-Colombe, opposite Vienne. All that remains of Eros, who was paired with her, is this left hand that caresses a familiar body. Through a tempting misreading, the sculpture suggests another kind of love and becomes an allegory of motherhood.