Why Do So Many People In Old Art Have A Long Second Toe?

Did you know that the (admittedly more recent) Statue of Liberty, the Venus de Milo, the Ancient Roman Boxer at Rest, and the Ancient Greek Laocoön and His Sons share a foot quirk in common?

In all of these iconic works of art, the characters depicted have second toes longer than their big toe – a phenomenon sometimes called “Morton’s toe”. The feature is also seen in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man.

It’s a quirk that’s been noted as far back as 1897, when a writer for the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal noted that in “early Greek art, where there is any attempt at careful modelling of the toes, the first toe is separated from the second, and in most instances the second toe is represented as somewhat longer than the first”.

Morton’s toe wasn’t really a “thing” in Ancient Egyptian art, though, Atlas Obscura added. That suggests it became a trend that stuck in the West.

Hands up: the short answer is, we don’t know for sure. But theories abound.

“Morton’s toe” affects anywhere from 4-30% of the global population.

The condition is sometimes called “Greek foot”, because over time, it’s become associated with Greek people.

That might explain its presence in predominantly Ancient Greek art – except that evolutionary geneticist Dr John H McDonald told USA Today, “I haven’t seen any evidence that so-called ‘Greek foot’ is more common in Greece than anywhere else”.

Another theory is that a longer second toe better fitted Greek ideals of beauty because it was more closely aligned with the mathematical rules of the Golden Ratio.

But not everyone thinks those numbers quite run, including in Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, where the famous fella’s second toe on his upper right leg extends to perfectly touch the curve of the surrounding circle.

There’s another option, too: simple repetition.

Whether some influential artists thought the feature was especially pleasing or just happened to use a model with Morton’s toe, there’s the chance that it was adopted by some of the greats and then endlessly aped.

“Many Roman statues have Greek feet, simply because the artists drew inspiration from one another,” Atlas Obscura posited.

A document from the US National Parks Service (NPS) seems to say the same thing: “As Roman statues sometimes are copies of the Greek originals, the Roman statues often have ‘Greek’ feet.”

Indeed, the person who created the Statue of Liberty, whose second toe is longer than her first, was pretty open about his Ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Roman inspiration.

“On her Greek/Roman feet, open sandals… define [the Statue of Liberty’s] heritage from the earliest days of civilization – we see her Morton’s toes,” the NPS added.