The Venus of Lespugue

(20 000-18 000 B.C.)

The stylish, almost abstract female figurine is cut from the ivory of a mammoth in the high-Palaeolithic. It was found in the cave of Rideaux near Lespugue in the Haute-Garonne at the bottom of the Pyrenees in 1922. It was heavily damaged and later restored to a large extent.

Like many of the Venus figurines, de Venus of Lespugue has thin arms which are laid over extremely big breasts. The female sexual characteristics are presented very explicitly and enlarged on the contrary to the face, arms and legs which, apparently, were less important.