The 9 ft. tall Hellenistic statue ‘WINGED VICTORY’, known formally as the ‘NIKE OF SAMOTHRACE’, holds pride of place at the top of the Louvre’s Daru staircase. It was excavated in 1863 with only one wing, minus its head and arms, but in 1950 a few fragments of Nike’s right hand were discovered. The second wing was cast from the original created in the second century B.C. The missing body parts have never been found, but there’s a chance they were preserved and hidden away, yet to be discovered. In its original state it would have been painted in garish colors… proving that old-age can actually be improved with the ravages of time.Like Bridget Jones, she’s perfect… just the way she is.

An excerpt from ‘I Was There’ by V KNOX

Samothrace’s white Victory,

a statuesque goddess once dressed in gaudy bling

for the Hellenistic naval ball,

stands defeated at the top of the stairs,

passing the time.

The toppled lighthouse queen’s retrograde destiny hovers,

frozen in the space of eternity.

‘Nike’, a cryogenic lady-in-waiting,

held captive within the stasis of a hermetically sealed museum,

anticipates the technologies of two thousand years

to restore her broken limbs.

An archaeological donor’s card of body parts:

to transplant an injured wing

and heal the massive head wounds of ancient color-blindness

and the shattered windblown draperies of hindsight.