Paul Hurault, 8th Marquis de Vibraye
Paul Hurault, 8th Marquis de Vibraye was an amateur archaeologist from France.
He was born Guillaume-Paul Louis Maximilien Hurault, son of a notable politician and military officer.
He discovered the very first Paleolithic sculptural representation of a woman discovered in modern times. It was found in about 1864 by at the famous archaeological site of Laugerie-Basse in the Vézère valley. The Magdalenian "Venus" from Laugerie-Basse is headless, footless, armless but with a strongly incised vaginal opening. De Vibraye named it La Vénus impudique or Venus Impudica, contrasting it to the Venus Pudica, Hellenistic sculpture by Praxiteles showing Aphrodite covering her naked pubis with her right hand. It is from this name that we get the term "Venus figurines" commonly used for Stone Age sculptures of this kind.
