‘Sexist' Venus bronze removed from Berlin government building
Admired by the war criminal Hermann Goering, dumped in a lake by SS troops and now banished from an office building for being sexist, an 18th-century bronze of the Medici Venus has had a chequered history.
The replica of the classical sculpture of the goddess of love covering her nakedness with her hands found favour with the pilot and art thief Goering, who exhibited her in his Carinhall country estate outside Berlin for eight years.
In the dying days of the Second World War, when the SS blew up Carinhall to stop it falling into the hands of the Soviets, she was thrown into a nearby lake, along with other unwieldy art treasures amassed by the Nazi.
After 45 years in the murk of
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
My daughter's form tutor used me for sex and dumped me after two years… should I make contact with him?
DEAR DEIDRE: MY daughter's form tutor has used me for sex. I'm 42 and he's 44. I've been single since my divorce three years ago. My youngest daughter is 13. I was called in by my daughter's school because my she had been in a fight with another pupil at the school. I have met the form tutor a couple of times but this time there was a definite spark between us as we sat together in his office. I thought he was very good looking. He contacted me a couple of days later to ask after my daughter. He wanted to know how she had been after our chat. We talked for a few minutes but when I went to end the call, he asked me out for a drink. I knew he'd overstepped a boundary, but on the spur of the moment I didn't care and agreed to meet him. We met at a service station out of town, and he drove me to a pub 15 miles away. We had dinner and we definitely seemed to click. The chemistry was undeniable. He told me he was in a loveless marriage. His wife wasn't interested in having sex with him any longer. He drove me back to my car and kissed me passionately. I hadn't been kissed like that for so long. He'd regularly come to my flat, telling his wife that he had a parent's evening or an awards ceremony. All the time he was getting me into bed. Our affair lasted two years. It was intense and passionate. He told me how much he loved me and, to prove it, he left his wife a couple of times. Dear Deidre: Spotting the signs your partner is cheating I thought we'd get together properly, but out of the blue he dumped me and has returned to his wife for good. I know what we did was wrong, but I can't understand why he has gone back to her. Mutual friends have told me that he's unhappy and misses me, but I can't let him back into my life again. I miss him so much but I feel so hurt. I'd be a fool to make contact again, wouldn't I? DEIDRE SAYS: Your ex-lover has strung you along for two years, letting you fall in love with him, telling you he loved you, then dumped you without warning. It hurts right now, but once you start to get over him, it will get easier. Should he contact you again, tell him that you won't be his bit on the side because you're worth more. If he's prepared to leave his wife in future, he'll know where to find you – but don't hold your breath. My support pack Your Lover Not Free? will help. Focus on meeting a man who is available. STRUGGLING WITH GIRLFRIEND'S PAST DEAR DEIDRE: I DIDN'T expect my girlfriend to be a virgin when we met, but I am struggling to cope with the 30 men she has had sex with before me. I am 38 and she is 27. We have been together for six months. I've had nowhere near as many lovers as she has, and it's torturing me to think about what she has done. I can't help but picture her with these other guys. I feel physically sick when it happens. Sometimes, I even get put off my stride if we are getting intimate and images of her with other men pop into my head. I was happy when she told me I am the best lover she has ever had. She made me feel so confident and good about myself. I really wanted us to have a serious relationship. But then, one night when we'd had a few drinks, she told me more about her past – that she had chosen to have a termination when she was 18. I tried hard not to pass judgement, but inwardly I felt like my world had collapsed. I truly thought I would do things in the old-fashioned way; get married, have a couple of kids and settle down. Now I am not so sure. I will never be the first one to get her pregnant and that hurts. Even though she is the best thing that has happened to me, I know I am beginning to drive her away. I realise that this is all irrational. How can I move beyond it? DEIDRE SAYS: Why does the number matter? It is history. The important thing is that she has chosen to commit to you. It would be a shame to throw away a happy and healthy relationship because of her past – something she can't change now. How frightening for her to be pregnant so young. Perhaps a termination was the only option open to her if the relationship with the father wasn't right. Your jealousy might be a sign of your own insecurities. Perhaps you are worried that she will tire of you. My support pack, Dealing With Jealousy, explains more. SMALL PENIS KNOCKING MY CONFIDENCE DEAR DEIDRE: WHEN it comes to sex, my confidence has been destroyed by exes who laughed at my small penis. Despite being a muscly man who is 6ft 4in tall, my tackle doesn't measure up. I am 32 and still looking for love. Although I have had many girlfriends, and saw a few of them as marriage material, when we got into bed, they just laughed at me. The relationships never lasted very long. It has destroyed my self-esteem and now I simply avoid dating because I can't cope with being rejected again. I know people say that size doesn't matter, but I am living proof that it does. I feel so alone and destined to be single forever. Is there anything I can do to regain my confidence? DEIDRE SAYS: Stop worrying for a start. You can be a great lover whatever size your penis is, so please believe me when I say that your problem isn't lack of inches, but the hurtful and ill-informed comments of your previous partners. What matters most to women is someone who is sensitive and imaginative in bed. Sexual satisfaction doesn't come from the penis alone. Most women reach orgasm when the clitoris is stimulated in the right way. My support pack, Penis Size, will reassure you and help you to believe in yourself. SHY SON ALL ALONE DEAR DEIDRE: MY son has tried and tried to make friends at school, but nothing he's done has worked. It is heartbreaking. I'm his 35-year-old mum and he is eight. He's a shy boy, but he's also kind and intelligent. When I take him to school, he just stands next to me rather than go off and play. He doesn't seem to have much confidence and tells me he usually sits alone at break and lunchtimes. Sometimes, he comes home in tears after the other children have been horrible to him. It is now starting to affect his schoolwork and he tells me he wants to stay at home, making excuses such as having a tummy ache so he doesn't have to go. I have thought about moving him to a different school, but I doubt that's the solution. I had a chat with his teacher to make her aware that my son is lonely, but realistically what can she do? How can I help him? Talk to him about school and find out if he's happy generally. Many friendships start from shared interests and hobbies, so encourage your son to find kids who have ones similar to him. Try out-of-school clubs to give him the confidence and the settings he needs to make friends. Most importantly, keep him talking so you can support him.
Reuters
3 hours ago
- Reuters
Iran used drug traffickers to stoke trouble in France, says minister
PARIS, June 22 (Reuters) - France has evidence that Iran has used intermediaries in the past to hire drug traffickers to carry out activities in France on its behalf and could do so again, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Sunday. France is on heightened alert following U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities overnight. "Iran uses proxies that are often linked to drug traffickers. They get a contract and don't even know that the contract is linked to the Iranian regime," Retailleau told LCI television. "But that's the modality used by Iran on (our)national territory." Retailleau did not say what activities had been carried out in France and gave no specific evidence. Iran's embassy was not immediately available for comment. "It's very simple. These are contracts through intermediaries that don't link back to the regime," Retailleau said. Highlighting the heightened security threat, Retailleau also referred to a foiled plot in July 2018 to blow up an opposition rally near Paris where several Iranians were arrested after a joint Franco-German-Belgian operation. The plot was led by Vienna-based Iranian diplomat Assadolah Assadi and three others, according to court documents. Assadi, who French officials said was running an Iranian state intelligence network and was acting on orders from Tehran, was sentenced in Belgium to a 20-year prison term in 2021. He was exchanged in May 2023 for four Europeans held in Iran. Iran has repeatedly denied carrying out destabilising activities in Europe.
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Lady Sarah Aspinall obituary: model married to zoo and casino owner
On June 21, 1970, Lady Sarah (Sally) Courage was sitting in the Williams pits at Circuit Zandvoort, timing her husband, Piers, as he roared past on lap 23 of the Dutch Grand Prix. Driving a new car for the Williams team, he was in seventh place, but as he approached the sharp Tunnel Oost corner, either his steering wheel or the front suspension failed and instead of turning left he went straight on. The car hit a bank and disintegrated, the fuel tank exploded and a wheel bearing flew back with such force that it knocked his helmet off and killed him instantly. The car was still blazing an hour later as Sally was helped away from the track. Piers's body was still in it. He was 28, and Sally, the mother of two boys aged three and one, was a widow at 25. The Courages had been a glamorous young couple. Before her marriage Sally had been a model. The dashing Piers was a member of the Courage brewing family. Their wedding in 1966 had been one of the highlights of the social season. The photographer Patrick Lichfield, who shot her for Vogue at home with her children, included her in his list of the ten most beautiful women. Now with two small boys to bring up on her own, Sally went back to modelling and ran an upmarket flower shop. Then she began seeing John Aspinall, who was nearly 20 years older than her. Larger than life, he won a court case that led to liberalisation of British gambling laws and opened Britain's first licensed casino, the Clermont Club in Berkeley Square. It became the centre of what later became known as the Lucan set after Lord Lucan, who dined there on the night he tried to murder his wife (he killed the nanny by mistake) and disappeared. To the end of her days, Sally maintained that Lucan almost certainly killed himself that same night, drowning himself in the sea off Newhaven, where his car was found the next day. Aspinall had a passion for wild animals, which he bred at his wildlife sanctuary, Howletts, in Kent. Sally had met him in 1967, before Courage died. Her friend Tessa Kennedy, the interior designer, drove her down to Aspinall's neo-Palladian manor on the Howletts estate, which she was decorating at the time. When Aspinall suggested a walk in the woods, Sally found herself accompanied by both adult and baby gorillas, one of which clambered on to her shoulders. After Courage's death, by which time Aspinall had divorced his second wife, he began courting her seriously. In 1972 they married and she moved into Howletts, where she bottle-fed baby gorillas abandoned by their mothers and often shared her bed with a tiger cub. For more than 20 years, zoological societies had dismissed Aspinall as an eccentric collector of animals. They changed their views after his gorilla breeding programme was successful. By the time Sally came into his life, he had more than 1,000 animals and 80 breeding species. His long-term objective was to return species to the wild, particularly captive-bred gorillas and tigers. Sally's affection for the gorillas was tested when Aspinall persuaded her to take their six-month-old baby, Bassa, into the enclosure and lay him gently on the floor for the gorillas to inspect and sniff. To her horror, a huge female called Juju suddenly picked Bassa up and swung up to the top of the cage, where he was passed around from one hairy arm to another. It was some time before Juju swung down again, and put the baby gently back where she had found him. Aspinall, a professional gambler, led a rollercoaster life, well off one day when the roulette wheel ran for him, poor the next after a bad run. He owned shares in companies run by his best friend, Jimmy Goldsmith, worth between £2 million and £3 million. In the financial crisis of 1974-75 the shares collapsed and Aspinall, who had borrowed heavily to pay for them, 'lost everything'. He sold his club for a miserable £500,000, mortgaged his London house and sold his wine, his books and his furniture, and when that wasn't enough he sold Sally's family jewellery. Goldsmith bailed him out almost weekly, but it was four years before Aspinall's finances recovered. His wife stood by him without complaint. One of Aspinall's early biographers, Brian Masters, wrote: 'Lady Sarah Aspinall is the perfect example of a primate female, ready to serve the dominant male. Hence the marriage is hugely successful.' Sally didn't disagree. 'Aspers was my man, my dominant male,' she said. 'I don't believe in any of this feminist stuff. He always respected me and loved me. I'm a very lucky woman. I've been blessed.' Sarah Curzon was born in Edinburgh in 1945, the daughter of Francis Curzon, Fifth Earl Howe, a Conservative politician and racing driver who was five times British champion and winner of both Le Mans and the Mille Miglia. Her mother was Sybil Boyter Johnson, Curzon's third wife. Sally, as she was known, was educated privately by governesses, followed by a finishing school. She later became a superb hostess at her and Aspinall's sumptuous Herbert Baker-designed home south of Cape Town. Goldsmith, Henry Kissinger, Jacob Rothschild, Kerry Packer, Conrad Black, FW de Klerk, Margaret and Denis Thatcher and many others visited them there. Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi was such a regular visitor that Aspinall built him his own cottage in the extensive gardens, which, much to Buthelezi's amusement, he called the Kraal (Afrikaans for cattle enclosure). Tragedy was never far off. On October 15, 1995, Sally's 28-year-old son Jason Courage was riding his motorbike (at 33mph according to the police report) when a car made an illegal right turn in front of him and he went into it. Jason was paralysed from the mid-chest down. He kept the full use of his arms and could swim, ski and propel himself to Chelsea's home games, which he seldom missed. After a stint in the City, he now runs an investment fund. A few years later, Aspinall developed cancer of the jaw and he died in 2000, aged 74. Sally, who had nursed him night and day, was with him to the end. After Aspinall's death, she moved out of the main house in Howletts to a cottage next to the original gorilla enclosure, and devoted herself to running the extensive gardens at both Howletts and Port Lympne. An inteprid traveller, she often stayed in Cape Town with her youngest son, Bassa, an artist, or visited her son Amos in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was working on a project to rehabilitate gorillas to their natural habitat. Lady Sarah Aspinall was born on January 25, 1945. She died on June 17, 2025, aged 80
