The most famous early image of a human, a woman, is the so-called "Venus" of Willendorf, is a 11.1 cm (4 3/8 inches) high statuette of a female figure, discovered at a Paleolithic site in 1908 at a Aurignacian loess deposit near the town of Willendorf in Austria. It is now in the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna. The statue was carved from oolitic limestone, and was colored with red orche. It is dated 30,000 and 25,000 BC.
Her great age and pronounced female forms quickly established the Venus of Willendorf as an icon of prehistoric art. She was soon included in introductory art history textbooks where she quickly displaced other previously used examples of Paleolithic art. Being both female and nude, she fitted perfectly into the patriarchal construction of the history of art. As the earliest known representation, she became the "first woman," acquiring a sort of Ur-Eve identity that focused suitably, from a patriarchal point of view, on the fascinating reality of the female......
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