Terracotta figurine of a standing woman with hat and fan
- Title:
- Terracotta figurine of a standing woman with hat and fan
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Fritz Gurlitt (Gallery) (reproduction)
Unknown (original)
- Photographer:
- Mericle, Danielle
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
ca. 300-200 BCE or late 19th c.
- Site:
- Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
probably Greece (original) - Location:
- Goldwin Smith Hall (Ground floor showcase), Cornell University
previously, 726 University Avenue
Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
probably Greece (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0587
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 454
Gurlitt 32
454 (sticker in front of pedestal), black point sticker
written in pencil underneath: G.01.03 (? difficult to read)
597 - File Name:
- CCC_0587.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 27.5 (H) cm
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- Hellenistic Greek, possibly modern in Hellenistic Greek style
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- terracotta, mold-made replica (sculpture)
terracotta sculpture in the round, mold-made (original) - Subject:
- Tanagra figurines
- Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from front
- Measurement:
- 28.7 (with pedestal) x 27.2 (without pedestal) x 10.6 x 8 (centimeters, height x height x width x diameter)
- Description:
- This is a terracotta replica of a terracotta figurine of a standing woman with a sun hat and fan. The figure stands placing her weight on her right leg with her left leg resting to her left. She wears a spinning top-like sun hat, a veil that covers her mouth, and a full-length garment, and she is wrapped in a heavy himation. The front portion of each foot is visible at the hemline of her garment. The woman holds a spade-shaped fan up to her face across her chest in her left hand and rests her left elbow on her right arm, which she holds across her body. Both arms are beneath the himation. This replica is in good condition. The himation is painted light blue, the hat and fan reddish brown, and the plait-like hair is red. The face and other drapery are the color of pale terracotta. In his 1885 sales catalog, Gurlitt (no. 32) locates the original of this object at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It is also published in Furtwaengler's catalog of the Saburov Collection (plate CIII) published between 1883-1887. The object is not encountered in the Hermitage's online collection database. The figure is nearly identical to one in New York at the Metropolitan Museum (no. 30.117). The type--a standing, heavily draped, veiled woman holding a fan and with or without a hat--is plentifully attested in Hellenistic figurines from Boeotia and beyond. The burial sites in and around the Boeotian town of Tanagra underwent large-scale looting in the 1870s in pursuit of Hellenistic terracotta figurines known then, as now, as Tanagra figurines, or simply as Tanagras. The Hellenistic figurines discovered in the graves there--most commonly depicting women and girls in acts of leisure or daily life, and also depicting Aphrodite, Eros, young men and boys, and grotesque figures--appealed greatly to the sensibilities of the time and quickly became popular among collectors and the general public. By 1873, the Greek government made attempts to control the looting and established official excavations around the area. Smaller-scale grave-robbing continued alongside these less-than-thoroughly documented excavations. In addition to looting, forgery and extensive restoration of these mold-made objects became lucrative practice when demand for the objects was at its highest.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
- Bibliography:
- Reynold Higgins, Tanagra and the Figurines (London: Trefoil Books, 1986)
I. Kriseleit and G. Zimmer (eds.), Bürgerwelten (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994)
Violaine Jeammet, ed., Tanagras. Figurines for Life and Eternity. The Musée du Louvre's Collection of Greek Figurines (Valencia: Fundación Bancaja, 2010), see no. 84
Adolphe Furtwaengler, La Collection Sabouroff: Monuments de l'Art Grec, vol. II (Berlin: A. Asher, 1883-1887), pl. CIII
Illustrated catalogue of the series of Fritz Gurlitt's Tanagra figures (London: Obach and Co., 1885), no. 32 - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
St. Petersburg, Hermitage (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.