Image: Tangopaso · smerikal · Tangopaso · Tangopaso · 林高志
Right hand of Nike of Samothrace
🎧 This work has audio narration — listen in the appThe thumb curves upward in a tight arc, and the index finger reaches out to the right, its tip worn and chipped by time. The knuckles end in an uneven, ragged edge where the other fingers once were, so what remains feels like a gesture caught mid-sentence.
The stone is white marble that has aged into cream and grey, with a softly polished surface that catches light, and across its back runs a faint reddish line and a scatter of orange-brown speckles. The hand sits on a dark metal support, and behind the glass the bright pale walls of the gallery are reflected in the stone's sheen.
This fragment belongs to the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the statue of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, that was made around 185 BC. The sculpture is a famous work of Hellenistic Greek art, and this right hand is one of the surviving pieces that belong to that larger figure.
The material here tells us only that the stone is marble. What you can actually see is a surface that has been smoothed to a soft, polished finish, with the knuckles and fingertips left rough where they have worn or chipped. The break at the wrist is a flat, roughly chiselled face, which shows where the hand was separated from the arm. Beyond that, the record doesn't say how the hand was carved or finished, so I won't guess at the tools or methods.
The material does not say why the support was chosen. It only records that the fragment is mounted on a dark metal base, with gallery walls reflecting in the polished stone.
