One has to go to Baud (north of Vannes) to discover the strange and massive granite statue of the Quinipily Venus. The enigmatic 2.15 metre high monument can boast the rousing of passions. In the 17th century, the idol was the object of the type of superstitious practices that even stirred the clergy.

A written note of this period confirms the following : Girls that wished to marry would make an offering in an indecent fashion, to get what they desired. Around 1666, the bishop of Vannes takes umbrage of this strange goddess. The idol was mutilated : its cheeks were chiseled out, its obscene breasts were resized. Even that wasn't enough : the Count Claude of Lannion had it thrown into the Blavet (river).
But nobody forgot the goddess. In 1698, Pierre of Lannion, son of Claude, fishes it out again. Apparently 30 pairs of oxen transported the beauty, so it is told - or what was left of it - to Quinipily.
Its origin is contested

The origins of the statue, mutilated and then saved by the waters of the Blavet, is contested. The mysterious inscription "TIT" written on the small strip which encircles the forehead of the idol was engraved by the Count Claude of Lannion, which would lead one to believe that it was not an ancient statue, but a copy.

Whether false or not, the statue was the object of an ownership lawsuit. Before it was taken from the waters, the monument stook at about a dozen miles kilometres from Quinipily, at Castennec. This place belonged to the Rohans, and in 1678 this noble family wished to recover its property which had been moved to Quinipily. But in 1701, the judges ruled in favour of the Count of Lannion who had the credit of having saved the idol from the waters of the Blavet. It is difficult to believe that the two families confronted each other to keep a vulgar copy.

In the end the beauty stayed at Quinipily. Magical rites continued to be performed. Today, the impassive idol sees more tourists parade in front of her than the "...young people desiring to marry", as wrote Gustave Flaubert.