Handcaved natural stone sculptures carved in our Firm in Vicenza stone material.
Attributed to Pitocrito thanks to the discovery of his name on the base of the statue, the Nike of Samothrace is a 245 cm high sculpture in marble pario of the rodia school, datable to 190 BC.
Today exhibited at the Louvre Museum, it rises majestically on top of the staircase designed by Hector Lefuel that connects the Galerie d'Apollon and the Salon Carré, where it arrived after being found by Charles Champoiseau in the island of Samothrace from which it takes its name, in the Aegean Sea, in 1863. The work probably represented a commemorative offer in the sanctuary of the Great Gods, the cabiris, after a naval victory of the cities of Rome, Rhodes and Pergamum against Syria.
The represented woman is the goddess Nike, daughter of the Pallante titan and of the nymph Styx, the goddess, as the name suggests, is the personification of the victory in the war and in the sporting world.
The statue represents the young winged goddess while she is laying on the bow of a battleship.
The figure appears leaning forward as if shaken by a rushing wind, on the breast the dress is very adherent and, becoming almost transparent, the body can be seen as if the fabric were wet. Observing the goddess it is visible how thanks to the spread wings her oblique body is balanced.
They are rendered with a play of chiaroscuro and a precise alternation of the length of the feathers, emphasizing the momentum of the figure and creating effects of vibrant brightness.
Dimensions : Total high 87" ( Cm. 220 )
