When you go to an art museum, you may be excited to view the works of some of the most famous artists, such as Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, and more. As you explore the works and exhibits, the plaques near each piece will explain it and its artist.
Of course, you’ll view the lesser-known pieces from the greats, such as those listed previously, but you’ll also view popular and unknown works by a wide range of artists.
However, you may be stopped when you find a piece and discover that its artist is unknown.
Many pieces of art go without having a known author. These pieces also tend to have an extra layer of mystery as they may be untitled, making them hard to find.
In this article, we’ll discuss a few pieces of art from various mediums whose artist is unknown to this day, and we’ll begin with The Paston Treasure.
The Paston Treasure
The Paston Treasure is a chaotic piece that depicts the treasures accumulated by the Paston family. While we know the artist was Dutch, who exactly they were is a mystery, as is the meaning of this piece.
At first glance, you’ll probably notice the young girl near the front and the large instrument near her.
The girl is commonly considered Margaret, Robert Paston’s daughter, though it is not known for certain who she is.
Upon further inspection, you may notice a few other details, such as the man on the left with a monkey on his shoulder, the various smaller items, or even the difficult-to-spot clock hanging on the right wall.
William Paston and his son, Robert Paston, collected all of these items on their travels throughout their lives.
Unfortunately, many of these items’ whereabouts are completely unknown since they were sold when the family went bankrupt.
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
This portrait of Queen Elizabeth I is iconic: it was painted shortly after England defeated Spain’s “Invincible Armada.”
While the painting was attributed to George Gower, the more recent belief that studios created these portraits instead has taken hold amongst some scholars in recent years.
Three of these portraits are still in existence, but each differs slightly when the details are examined.
Of course, Queen Elizabeth is sitting directly in the center of all three portraits, demanding your attention. Her large and heavily detailed sleeves attract your attention first.
These draw the eye to her black gown, the large white collar, and finally, her pale face and bright hair.
The windows next to her each show different battle scenes, with the left one benign bright, representing daytime, and the right being dark to represent that the battle took place in the evening hours.
Venus de Milo
This iconic and famous sculpture may leave you scratching your head for a few reasons: She is missing many parts. Two, the historic Louvre in Paris displays it with a plaque that does not claim the artist, though scholars have debated and deduced that we may actually know who the artist was. As you may have guessed, the history of this piece is long and fascinating.
Originally, the sculpture arrived in parts, and with these parts was a plaque. It reads, “Alexandros, son of Menides, a citizen of Antioch of Maeander, made the statue.” There are many reasons why this plaque may not have been displayed, but the fact remains that even today, the original plaque remains hidden away somewhere.
While many believe the sculpture depicts the Greek goddess of beauty and love, Aphrodite, some believe that it is supposed to be Amphitrite, the Greek goddess of the sea, instead. Aside from the fact that it is carved from marble, the most obvious fact about this piece is that her arms are missing. Her left foot is also missing.
No one has attempted to apply arms to her because the pose they originally had is unknown and could change the piece’s meaning significantly.
This piece has not only managed to captivate hearts and minds thanks to the anonymous nature of the work’s history, but it has managed to stand out as one of the greatest works in history.
Like the Wind
Unlike the above pieces, this isn’t a painting or a sculpture. Instead, this song has been dubbed by many to be the most mysterious song on the internet. Although the hunt for any information on it began in the early 2000s, very little has been found.
It is believed to have been recorded from a Norddeutscher Rundfunk radio broadcast, but the recorder, named Darius S., left out the radio host’s dialogue.
As a result, the only facts that the internet community has been able to collect is that it was likely recorded sometime in 1984 and that the artist was European.
A YouTube upload of the song is available for those who wish to listen to it. While some of the lyrics, such as “Like the Wind,” are easy to understand, others are much harder to hear, which leaves many of the lyrics up for debate to this day.
If you try to play this song in the Shazam app, a name and artist will appear in the video’s description. Many comments beneath it claim that this is inaccurate and was done by someone without permission.
The world of unknown artists is vast, murky, and fascinating. From famous paintings to obscure films and songs, many artists have remained anonymous and created mysteries for scholars and the public to discover and deviate for decades.
f course, sometimes the artist isn’t what’s missing; sometimes the art itself is lost.
While this article only touched on unknown artists, the world of lost art and media is equally as fascinating as demonstrated by “Like the Wind.”
Hopefully, the world of lost artists and art has fascinated you as much as the art mentioned above did.