About this 3D model

Update 6/23/14: I used a compilation of photos of other people's prints of this model in a presentation to LACMA on February 3, 2014. Here's an adaptation of my presentation: * [3D Printing, 3D Capture, and Opportunities for Design Custodians](https://medium.com/@CosmoWenman/3d-printing-3d-capture-and-opportunities-for-design-custodians-7985097d2ac4).* Please share it with anyone you think might be interested — Thanks. *** *"No classical education is needed to appreciate the personification, nor is it hard to grasp the drama of the figure's action given its superb position--and this is so despite the absence of arms and head; indeed perhaps its maimed condition has helped make the life it retains seem more miraculous."*—Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, *Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500-1900* **** An iconic beacon of martial glamour, *Winged Victory, the Nike of Samothrace* is widely considered Hellenistic sculpture's greatest masterpiece. It was made between 200 and 190 BC, and more than a century ago important works of sculptural art like it were reproduced in plaster to be bought, sold, and traded by museums, universities, art schools, and private collectors around the world. In 1891, high-fidelity, full-scale, nine-foot-tall plaster casts of *Winged Victory* could be purchased from the Louvre's own atelier for 300 francs. The customs and commerce driving the plaster cast tradition largely [died out](http://goo.gl/aFX84x) in the early 1900s. Many significant cast collections were broken up, with some pieces lost or even deliberately destroyed. In 1892, a plaster of *Winged Victory* was carefully cast by the Louvre's atelier under the direction of its master mold maker Eugene Arrondelle and was purchased by the University of Basel. The Basel cast of *Victory* survives today at the Skulpturhalle Basel museum. In September 2013, with the museum's permission and the financial support of Autodesk's Reality Capture division, I spent a week working in the Skulpturhalle, taking 3D surveys of my choice of casts. I took hundreds of carefully staged photos of *Victory* and used Autodesk's *ReCap Photo* photogrammetry software to process them into this high-quality 3D model. *Winged Victory* is one of the world's most celebrated sculptures. It usually stands atop a stone warship's prow at the top of the Louvre's Daru staircase, where it oversees millions of visitors, but in September 2013 the Louvre removed *Victory* from public view while it undergoes an extensive, year-long restoration. That restoration effort will include a 3D survey, though the Louvre has not indicated whether they will freely publish the 3D data for which they are soliciting funds. While the original *Victory* is conspicuously missing, and as the Louvre contemplates what to do with their data, I am happy to provide my own. This capture is to my knowledge the first high-quality 3D survey of *Winged Victory* to be freely published, and I hope you enjoy direct access to this ancient, dramatic work's mystique. Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, quoted above, continue, writing in *Taste and the Antique* that the *Winged Victory of Samothrace* "was singled out by Marinetti in his Futurist manifesto of 20 February 1909 as the symbol of the classical culture which the heroic new age of the machine gun and racing car would supercede." I hope this new, 3D captured, digitally published *Winged Victory* and all its 3D printed iterations might someday be seen as symbols of a *new* new age, and a different kind of futurism. You can read more about my project, *Through A Scanner, Skulpturhalle,* at http://ThroughAScanner.com. I will be publishing more results, including *Venus de Milo* and the *Medusa Rondanini,* among others, and cataloging them here: http://thingiverse.com/thing:83781 I post occasional updates on Twitter as well: http://twitter.com/CosmoWenman If you know anyone who would be interested in sponsoring more of this kind of work by me, please send them my way. Thanks, -- Cosmo Wenman http://cosmowenman.com http://twitter.com/CosmoWenman cosmo.wenman@gmail.com **** The blue-green 3D print shown in the photos was made with white PLA and finished in patinated copper using Alternate Reality Patinas (coming soon!). It's the very first 3D print made with this survey data, and it was shown at the London and Paris 3D Printshows in November 2013. It's been sold, but I can make another, and another, and another, in unlimited editions. I am also offering 3D prints of *Winged Victory* through my Shapeways shop, http://shapeways.com/shops/CosmoWenman In addition to my Shapeways offerings, [I can cast *Victory* for you in bronze or stainless steel](http://cosmowenman.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/3d-scanning-3d-printed-lost-pla-bronze-casting-and-the-art-of-the-living-dead/) in any size. **** Information, Tools, and Specifications: *Nike, The Winged Victory of Samothrace* Skulpturhalle Basel accession number 248 1892 plaster molded