Venus of Willendorf

Cast of the famous "Venus of Willendorf"

This is one of the most famous early images of  a woman, the so-called "Venus of Willendorf". It was found in 1908 by the archaeologist Josef Szombathy in an Aurignacian loess deposit in a terrace about 30 meters above the Danube river near the town of Willendorf in Austria.

The statuette, which measures about 11.1 centimeters in length, is now in Vienna's "Naturhistorisches Museum". It was made out of a fine porous oolitic limestone not found in the region and so must have been brought to the area from another location. It may well be the case that the carving, which was presumably done with flint tools, was not done locally.

When first discovered the Venus of Willendorf was thought to date to approximately 15,000 to 10,000 BCE, or more or less to the same period as the cave paintings at Lascaux in France. A study published in the year 1990 of the stratigraphic sequence of the nine superimposed archaeological layers comprising the Willendorf deposit, now indicates a date for the Venus of Willendorf of around 24,000-22,000 BCE.

This cast is handcoloured and made of Epoxi. The colours may be a little differend than shown on the pictures. The handcraft makes every cast unique.