The Venus de Milo is both a great work of art and a popular icon, and from the moment of her discovery in 182, she has been an object of controversy. In Disarmed, Gregory Curtis gives us the life of this magnificent statue. Unearthed by a farmer digging for marble building blocks on the Aegean island of Melos, at the moment a young officer and amateur archeologist happened by, the ownership of the Venus was fought over by the islands elders and their Turkish overlords. The French pressed their claim and then, outwitting other suitors, brought her to the Louvre, where she became an immediate celebrity. A passionate researcher, Curtis shows us Europe in the early nineteenth century, caught in the grip of a classical art mania and a burgeoning romantic Hellenism. He sketches a tale of rich historical intrigue, revealing just how far the Louvre was prepared to go to prove it had the greatest classical find of the era. And how two magisterial scholars, one French and one German, battled over the statues origins and authenticity for decades. This is a marvellously readable and entertaining history of one of the best known artworks in the world. About the AuthorGregory Curtis was editor of Texas Monthly from 1981 until 2000. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Fortune, Time, and Rolling Stone. A graduate of Rice University and San Francisco State College, he currently lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and four children.