This is a small plaster cast in patinated plaster mounted on a wooden base. As a Venus of Milo copy, this little head sculpture stems from the late heydays of plaster cast reproductions; it was most likely produces by the foundry Gebr. Micheli in Berlin in the early 1900s. The Micheli plaster casting workshop was running from the 1820s up until the second world war, and part of its holdings are now in the Gipsformerei collections at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

This sculpture was injured with some fractures and material loss on its nose and chin, and I treated it for a private owner in 2021. Fractured pieces had been glued on before and were poorly integrated. The treatment consisted of retreating the previous repairs and consolidating the original material. Since the lost material was situated on central features of the sculpture’s face, the damages were quite visually disturbing. Hence, the nose and chin were partly reconstructed and retouched for better visual reintegration.