Plaster Casts and Originals’ Travels in the Context of the Discovery of the Winged Victory of Samothrace

GALLIPOLI, MILENA

Motion: Migrations. 35th World Congress

Vasto Edições

Año: 2023; p. 1380 - 1394

In 1863, a French archaeological mission lead by consul Charles Champoiseau dug out the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Currently, it is one of the most famous and reproduced artworks of the world, but its initial moment of coming to light was filled with institutional occurrences and political intrigues. The main aim of this proposal is to analyze the political agency of the plaster casts of the Winged Victory that travelled between France and the Ottoman Empire during its discovery. By looking into a series of epistolary exchanges and writings from Champoiseau I will examine a double migration. On the one hand, I will analyze the internal movements of the Victory inside the Musée du Louvre that lead to the conversion of the piece from anonymous discovery to one of Paris’ leading ladies. On the other hand, in parallel, the Atelier de Moulage du Musée du Louvre started casting plaster copies of the Victory and some of them were used as diplomatic gifts for the Ottoman Empire. These traces account for a complex geopolitical scheme and how objects take on an active role within them. In this sense, this study case allows me to examine how circulations and transits of copies responded to an explicit political agenda, which ultimately reinforced and spread canonical artworks and their models.