Venus of Lespugue: The Stylised Ice Age Ivory Figurine

The Venus of Lespugue is a mammoth-ivory figurine of a woman, about 14.7 cm tall, found in 1922 in the Grotte des Rideaux at Lespugue in the Haute-Garonne, south-west France. Carved around 25,000 years ago in the Gravettian period, it is one of the most stylised of all Ice Age female figures. It is also famous for the string skirt carved on its back, among the earliest known depictions of clothing made from twisted fibre.

Discovery in 1922

Lespugue is a small village in the foothills of the Pyrenees, above the gorges of the river Save. The limestone cliffs of the gorge contain several caves, including the Grotte des Rideaux, which the prehistorian René de Saint-Périer excavated with his wife, Suzanne de Saint-Périer.

On 9 August 1922 the figurine was struck by a pick during digging in the cave deposits. The blow damaged the front of the piece, breaking away part of the surface, and some fragments were never recovered. Saint-Périer published the find quickly, and it soon became one of the best-known works of Palaeolithic art. The Saint-Périer collection later went to the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, where the figurine is kept today.

A study in symmetry

At first glance the Venus of Lespugue looks almost abstract. The breasts, belly and buttocks are hugely enlarged and grouped around the middle of the figure, while the small, faceless head and the short, tapering legs point up and down like the ends of a spindle.

The prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan observed that the figure fits almost exactly inside a lozenge (diamond shape), with the widest part at the hips and breasts. He argued that several Gravettian figurines, from France to central and eastern Europe, followed a similar scheme, suggesting a shared artistic convention over great distances.

The figure is also strongly symmetrical. The two breasts hang like matching pendants above the belly, and the buttocks mirror them below. Some writers have compared its forms to modern sculpture, and the figure has often been cited by twentieth-century artists and critics.

The string skirt

The back of the figurine shows a detail not seen on the front. Below the hips, a horizontal band runs across the body, and from it hang a series of long parallel cords that reach down the back of the legs. Fine incisions on the cords suggest twisting, and their ends appear to spread out.

In her 1994 book Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years, the American textile historian Elizabeth Wayland Barber argued that the carving depicts a skirt made of twisted string. If so, it shows that Gravettian people knew how to twist plant or animal fibres into cords, a technology that also underlies nets, snares, bags and textiles.

This interpretation fits other evidence. Impressions of woven fabric and cordage in fired clay from Gravettian sites in Moravia, such as Dolní Věstonice, show that fibre crafts were well developed at this time.

Ivory and craftsmanship

The figurine was carved from mammoth ivory, a dense but workable material prized by Gravettian craftspeople. Mammoths still roamed Europe at the time, and tusks could be taken from hunted animals or collected from carcasses and older deposits.

Working ivory with stone tools required patience. Carvers usually split a section of tusk, roughed out the shape with flint blades and burins (chisel-like stone tools), and then smoothed the surface by scraping and polishing. The deep grooves of the string skirt and the curves of the body show considerable skill and control.

The piece is small enough to hold in one hand, and like many Gravettian figurines it may have been carried, handled or displayed rather than kept in one fixed place. Its exact use, however, is unknown.

Myths and facts

Myth: the figurine was found intact. Fact: it was damaged at the moment of discovery, and its front has been partly restored.

Myth: its exaggerated shape shows how Ice Age women really looked. Fact: the proportions are deliberately stylised; the carver was following an artistic scheme, not making a realistic portrait.

Lespugue among the Venus figures

The Lespugue figurine belongs to a wide family of Gravettian female figures, including the Venus of Willendorf, the Venus of Brassempouy from the Landes and the Venus of Laussel relief from the Dordogne. Older still is the Venus of Hohle Fels from Germany, made more than 35,000 years ago.

Interpretations of these figures range from fertility symbols and images of ancestors to self-portraits or teaching objects. None can be proven, and the figures may have meant different things in different communities.

Timeline

• c. 33,000-24,000 years ago: The Gravettian culture spreads across Europe.
• c. 25,000 years ago (estimate): The figurine is carved from mammoth ivory.
• 9 August 1922: The figurine is found, and damaged, during excavations by René de Saint-Périer.
• 1965: André Leroi-Gourhan describes the lozenge scheme of Gravettian figurines.
• 1994: Elizabeth Wayland Barber interprets the carving on the back as a string skirt.

Why it matters

The Venus of Lespugue shows how far Gravettian artists could stylise the human body while keeping a strong sense of form and balance. Its string skirt also gives rare evidence of a perishable technology, twisted fibre, that was vital to Ice Age life but rarely survives. Small as it is, the figurine links art, clothing and craft in a single object.