Facebook apologized on Thursday for the recent censorship of the Venus of Willendorf, a small statue considered a masterpiece of Paleolithic art.
“We apologize for this mistake and allow the user to publish it,” said a Facebook spokesperson to AFP.
The Natural History Museum in Vienna, the owner of the statue, was beside itself when it learned that the post featuring a photograph of the Venus of Willendorf, uploaded to Facebook by Italian artist Lura Ghianda, had become a subject of censorship.
The 11-centimeter tall statue, made of limestone, represents a naked faceless woman with steatopygia (fat deposits on the body), discovered in the early 20th century in the Austrian village of Willendorf. “This is a prehistoric depiction of the most popular and well-known woman in the world,” the museum stated.
Facebook has a policy of not allowing nudity on its pages. “But for this statue, we will make an exception,” said the spokesperson.
The most popular social network is often criticized for censoring works of art. Recently, a Frenchman sued Facebook after his account was closed for posting a photograph of Gustave Courbet’s painting “The Origin of the World,” which depicts female genitalia. The ruling is expected to be published in mid-March.
