Sculpture Venus of Grimaldi

Hand patinated reproduction, on a stone base. Mold made from a print of the original work exhibited at the Musée d'archéologie nationale de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Caves of Balzi Rossi in Grimaldi (Italy). Excavations Louis Alexandre Julien, 1883-1895

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, museum of national Archaeology...

Hand patinated reproduction, on a stone base. Mold made from a print of the original work exhibited at the Musée d'archéologie nationale de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

Caves of Balzi Rossi in Grimaldi (Italy). Excavations Louis Alexandre Julien, 1883-1895

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, museum of national Archaeology
Upper Palaeolithic, around -29.000/-22.000
Rmn-GP cast from the original in rown steatite

This female statuette or "Venus" has been discovered at the end of the 19th century in the caves of Balzi Rossi at Grimaldi in Italy, close to the Franco-Italian border.
It is allotted to the Upper Palaeolithic period (around -25.000).
Worked in brown steatite, this figurine has a generous body, with exaggerated sexual characters, but a reduced head and members.
Very stylized, it evokes the femininity, the maternity and the fecundity, which were important concepts for the prehistoric groups of huntersgatherers.