Paul Hurault, 8th Marquis de Vibraye (1809–1878) was an amateur

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

from

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. He was born Guillaume-Paul Louis Maximilien Hurault, son of a notable politician and military officer . He discovered the very first

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

sculptural representation of a woman discovered in modern times. It was found in about 1864 by at the famous archaeological site of

Laugerie-Basse Laugerie-Basse is an important Upper Paleolithic archaeological site within the territory of the French commune Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil in Dordogne. It is known for several works of art from the Magdalenian. In 1979, Laugerie-Basse, along wit ...

in the

Vézère The Vézère (; ) is a 211-km-long river in southwestern France. It is an important tributary to the Dordogne (river), Dordogne. Its source is in the northwestern part of the elevated plateau known as the Massif Central. It flows into the Dordog ...

valley (one of the many important Stone Age sites in and around the commune of

Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil (; ) is a former commune in the Dordogne department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It was created in 1973 by the merger of two former communes: Les Eyzies-de-Tayac and Sireuil. On 1 January 2019, it wa ...

Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; ) is a large rural departments of France, department in south west France, with its Prefectures in France, prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and ...

, southwestern

). The

Magdalenian Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; ) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a ro ...

"Venus" from Laugerie-Basse is headless, footless, armless but with a strongly incised vaginal opening. De Vibraye named it '' La Vénus impudique'' or ''Venus Impudica'' ("immodest Venus"), contrasting it to the '' Venus Pudica'',

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

sculpture by

Praxiteles Praxiteles (; ) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture ...

showing

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

covering her naked pubis with her right hand. It is from this name that we get the term "

Venus figurines A Venus figurine is any Upper Palaeolithic statue portraying a woman, usually carved in the round.Fagan, Brian M., Beck, Charlotte, "Venus Figurines", beliefs '' The Oxford Companion to Archaeology'', 1996, Oxford University Press, pp. 740– ...

" commonly used for Stone Age sculptures of this kind.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vibraye, Paul Hurault, 8th Marquis de 1809 births 1878 deaths French archaeologists