Like many Hellenistic statues, the Winged Victory of Samothrace is sculpted from marble. Specifically, its body is made of white marble from Paros, Greece, and its base is made of gray marble from Rhodes, Greece. Iron, tin, and ivory were not common materials for ancient Greece sculpture.

The Siren Vase is a type of vessel known as stamnos and is decorated with red and black images. One of the most famous examples of ancient Greek pottery, the Siren Vase (c. 475 BCE) depicts the hero Odysseus battling sirens, enchanting female creatures who lured sailors to their deaths with hypnotic songs. This hero appears in the Homeric epics The Odyssey and The Iliad; none of the other authors were ancient Greek writers.

One of the most famous examples of ancient Greek pottery, the Siren Vase (c. 475 BCE) is a major example of Attic red-figure pottery. This type of work became common in the mid-500s BCE and is characterized by red figures on a black background (as opposed to black-figure pottery, which depicts black figures on a red or yellow background). Terracotta pottery is similarly red-colored but typically unpainted.

The statue’s subject and pose is an often-copied one, with similar version appearing in famous paintings and sculpture gardens in Europe and beyond for centuries. The statue itself is thought to be based on an earlier Aphrodite sculpture in marble by the ancient Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. However, the direct progenitor of the Venus de Medici was made of the more lightweight bronze.

While the Venus de Milo is missing its arms, the Venus de Medici is an intact sculpture. Both famous Venuses have heads and may have been adorned with jewelry made of precious metals. Neither currently has paint or a cryptic inscription, although they do feature translatable Greek lettering at their bases.

Having been sculpted around 100 BCE, the Venus de Milo is a famous sculpture dating to the Hellenistic era. It was originally thought to have been sculpted during the Classical era, but its elaborate draping, spiral composition, revival of classical touches, and perfect three-dimensionality make it a quintessential example of Hellenistic sculpture.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus_de_Milo_Louvre_Ma399_n2.jpg

Like many Hellenistic sculptures, the Venus de Milo is made of marble. Specifically, it was carved from white marble believed to have been quarried in Paros, Greece. Ivory and plaster of Paris were not materials used in ancient Greek sculpture.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus_de_Milo_Louvre_Ma399_n2.jpg

The Venus de Milo is generally agreed to represent Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. (A small minority of scholars believe that the statue in fact represents Amphitrite, a goddess of the sea.) Gods and goddesses such as Zeus, Hades, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite were very popular subjects of not only Hellenistic but also Archaic and Classical Greek artworks.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus_de_Milo_Louvre_Ma399_n2.jpg

The Venus de Milo displayed in Paris’s Louvre museum is famously missing its original marble arms and plinth. It’s also missing the polychromatic paint and gold or silver jewelry that would have adorned it. A cartouche, on the other hand, is an oval engraving containing hieroglyphs that spell out a person’s name, and it is specific to the art of ancient Egypt.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus_de_Milo_Louvre_Ma399_n2.jpg

The Discobolus of Myron, named for the Athenian sculptor Myron, dates to the Early Classical period (also described as the Severe style). The statue was created between 480 and 440 BCE. Like many Early Classical works, it is defined by its simple, un-ornate aesthetic, its use of bronze, and its fairly novel portrayal of human emotion and action. The statue is further distinguished as Early Classical by the sculptor’s desire to depict a person in motion, a human moment frozen in time.