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The most famous goddess of victory is in the Louvre: the winged 'Nike of Samothrace'. A masterpiece of late Greek sculpture, of which unfortunately the head is missing. The Hague too has its 'Nikes'. One of them was made by sculptor Eja Siepman van den Berg for the Sculpture Gallery. Her 'Nike' in the city centre has no wings (just a piece of upper arm), no lower legs and feet, and like her antique counterpart no head. The goddess has been transformed into a torso.

The French sculptor August Rodin (1840-1917) was the first to believe that a fragment of a body, such as a torso, a hand or a foot, possessed sufficient visual power to function autonomously. He elevated incompleteness to an aesthetic principle and inspired countless artists. Siepman van den Berg arrived at the torso, the main theme of her oeuvre, via a different route. As a young artist, she greatly admired the Romanian/French sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), who, among other things, took several steps from the head to the perfect egg. Like Brancusi, Siepman van den Berg sought the essence by abstracting the human form.

Her search ended with the omission of limbs. With the torso, she can concentrate fully on the form, which increases the sculptural quality. The torso lends itself best to the representation of an emotional tension, precisely because it is incomplete. Siepman van den Berg manages to make that tension tangible under the taut, shiny skin of her bronzes and marbles. Stylised and finished to perfection, standing and posing in complete tranquillity, her seemingly distant but oh-so-sensual sculptures reflect the purity of young, self-conscious life. Invincible like Nike.