Paris (AFP)
The "Pallas de Velletri", a statue of the war goddess Athena who so fascinated Napoleon Bonaparte during the Italian campaign, has been restored in the Louvre, regaining the sparkling whiteness of its crystal marble.
"Napoleon Bonaparte had been fascinated during its discovery in 1797. He absolutely wanted to guarantee its acquisition for the Louvre. It had imposed itself on him by its symbols: warrior goddess and goddess of wisdom at the same time", explained Tuesday to AFP Ludovic Laugier, curator of the department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities.
3.05 meters high, representing Athena wearing the helmet and the aegis adorned with the head of the Gorgon, it faces the Venus de Milo, each at one end of the great gallery of Greek and Roman antiquities.
Since its restoration in 1992, the statue was dirty.
"She was veiled. Colors also overflowed from the eyes, from the mouth, like a halo, resulting from added pigments (...) We did retouching with clear watercolor so that these colors are no longer dissonant", explained Ludovic Laugier.
The main result is above all "to have found the quality of this marble, a marble, that of Thasos (an island north of the Aegean Sea) very white, with large crystals, which shines with light" he adds.
The surface has been cleaned, the blockages, altered for the most part, have been retouched, cracks filled to prevent the accumulation of dust, some dowels have been redone in mortar and marble powder to improve the readability of certain patterns of the drape.
Work carried out by two of the best experts in this type of restoration, Anne Liégey and Nathalie Bruhière.
Discovered not far from Rome during the French military campaign in 1797, restored at the time by the renowned Italian sculptor Vincenzo Pacetti, the colossal statue is the 1st century Roman replica of a Greek original in bronze created around 430 BC , attributed to Creilas.
Napoleon and Josephine immediately fell in love with it and acquired it for their museum.
La Pallas has been in the Louvre since 1803.
Sign of its symbolic importance: in 1804, a medal struck to celebrate the birth of the Civil Code represented it.
© 2020 AFP