Female figure "Tangara"; Greece, Boeotia, 3rd century
Female figure "Tangara"; Greece, Boeotia, 3rd century BC.
Terracotta.
Size: 16.5 x 6.5 x 5 cm.
Female figure made in terracotta, shown standing and dressed in chiton and himation, as was customary in Ancient Greece. Her posture (contrapposto), lines, face, hairstyle, etc. are reminiscent of a series of small sculptures made in Tanagra, hence the name by which they are known. However, examples of nude rather than clothed ladies are more common than the present one.
Tanagra, also called Tanagraois, was a city in Boeotia, near the border with Attica, in a territory called Pemandride, which produced the best wine in Boeotia. Perched high up, with its temples separated from the houses, it had an important necropolis. Of particular note are the terracotta human figures known as 'tanagrines', fashionable in the ancient Greek world from the end of the 4th century BC to the end of the 3rd century BC, found mainly in Hellenistic tombs, but also in temples, and found in large quantities from about the last third of the 19th century onwards. They were part of the trousseaux, and generally belonged to the Attic school of sculpture, with a strong influence of the school of Praxiteles (as can be seen in the present case from the curve formed by the figure at the hips, an "invention" of this sculptor and therefore known as the "Praxitelian curve"), with faces with gentle expressions and a certain languid air, and probably made in Athenian workshops in many cases. Similar discoveries have been made in Myrina (present-day Turkey), Cyrene (Italy) and Alexandria (Egypt).
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Female figure "Tangara"; Greece, Boeotia, 3rd century BC.
Terracotta.
Size: 16.5 x 6.5 x 5 cm.
Female figure made in terracotta, shown standing and dressed in chiton and himation, as was customary in Ancient Greece. Her posture (contrapposto), lines, face, hairstyle, etc. are reminiscent of a series of small sculptures made in Tanagra, hence the name by which they are known. However, examples of nude rather than clothed ladies are more common than the present one.
Tanagra, also called Tanagraois, was a city in Boeotia, near the border with Attica, in a territory called Pemandride, which produced the best wine in Boeotia. Perched high up, with its temples separated from the houses, it had an important necropolis. Of particular note are the terracotta human figures known as 'tanagrines', fashionable in the ancient Greek world from the end of the 4th century BC to the end of the 3rd century BC, found mainly in Hellenistic tombs, but also in temples, and found in large quantities from about the last third of the 19th century onwards. They were part of the trousseaux, and generally belonged to the Attic school of sculpture, with a strong influence of the school of Praxiteles (as can be seen in the present case from the curve formed by the figure at the hips, an "invention" of this sculptor and therefore known as the "Praxitelian curve"), with faces with gentle expressions and a certain languid air, and probably made in Athenian workshops in many cases. Similar discoveries have been made in Myrina (present-day Turkey), Cyrene (Italy) and Alexandria (Egypt).
