Mark Zuckerberg has raised eyebrows by commissioning a giant sculpture of his wife, Priscilla Chan.
In a photo of the statue, posted to Instagram, the Facebook CEO and co-founder said he was “bringing back the Roman tradition of making sculptures of your wife”.
The large sculpture was made by Daniel Arsham, a New York-based artist who has collaborated with brands including Tiffany and Dior. Chan is rendered in green and appears to be mid-stride, with a large silver cloak flowing behind her.
Zuckerberg’s photo shows Chan standing next to the statue, which appears to be roughly 7ft tall and has been placed under a tree. In the comments Chan wrote: “The more of me the better?” along with the heart emoji.
People magazine, which declared Zuckerberg to be “the ultimate wife guy!”, reported that in Roman times statues were sometimes made to honor dead loved ones or to “refer to significant relatives and to make meaningful associations”.
The statue received a largely positive response from Zuckerberg’s followers.
“Omg so beautiful, lucky girl,” one person wrote, while the account “The Billlionaires [sic] Lifestyle”, which posts pictures of rich people and expensive things, posted: “This need [sic] to be in [a] museum”, accompanied by the applause and fire emojis.
Not everyone was impressed, however. Andrew Mwangi wrote: “This is the most billionaire thing to do ever”, and a user called devilette said: “yikes. this is quite unflattering.”
Zuckerberg did not post the photo on Facebook, although he did recently post a video of him surfing while wearing a tuxedo and holding an American flag.
