The Dancing Venus

My Entry for the February Contest at

The Topic was “Art of the Paleolithic” and I chose the Venus vom Galgenberg as the subject of my drawing. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia…

I thought I’d draw what I imagine the scene that inspired the Stone Age artist might have looked like.

This 7,2 cm tall figurine made from Serpentine was found in Lower Austria (25km from the finding spot of the much more famous Venus von Willendorf) and dates to around 36.000 BP. Together with the Venus von Holefels she is considered the oldest known humanoid figurine.

The Interpretation of the posture ranges from a dancer to a hunter with a club. I obviously went with the former. The structure I drew as the bend left arm is often seen as a breast – which would make sense but would have led to an anatomically awkward drawing. So I gave her some kind of fur cloak to stand in for what is probably the actual left arm. The statue was nicknamed “Fanny” after Fanny Elßner a 19^th century Austrian Ballerina.

I hope you like it!