Terracotta figurine of a seated woman
- Title:
- Terracotta figurine of a seated woman
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Fritz Gurlitt (Gallery) (reproduction)
Unknown (original)
- Photographer:
- Mericle, Danielle
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
3rd c. BCE
- Site:
- Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
Boeotia, Greece (original) - Location:
- Goldwin Smith Hall, former Temple of Zeus space, Cornell University
previously, 726 University Avenue
Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
Boeotia, Greece (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0591
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 466
Gurlitt I
466 (sticker in front)
black point sticker
written in black ink: AR
MK incised underneath (? very sketchy)
602 - File Name:
- CCC_0591.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 22.5 (H) cm
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- Hellenistic
- 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:
- 22.3 (with pedestal) x 20.8 without pedestal) (centimeters, height x height)
pedestal: 13.6 x 10.5 (centimeters, width x diameter) - Description:
- This is a terracotta replica of a Tanagra figurine that is housed in Berlin. The fully-draped young woman sits upright on a cube-shaped bench with her left foot advanced and her torso and head twisted to her left. She gazes calmly ahead supporting her weight on her left arm. Her curly hair is bound by a thick fillet, wound twice, and tied up into a knot high on the back of her head. She wears a full-length, short-sleeved chiton that is belted high on her waist.The hair has been painted reddish, the headband dark gray, and the drapery and skin are off-white. The original is in good condition. This replica has been broken and glued back together at the neck. 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. Many major museums acquired such fakes, and, with the use of thermoluminescence dating, some 20% of the collection of Tanagra figurines in the Berlin Antikensammlung have been shown to be modern creations (Goedicke in Kriseleit and Zimmer, 80). The original of this object is genuine and is said to have come from Tanagra. This replica is no. 1 in Gurlitt's sale catalog.
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
no. TC 7436 - Bibliography:
- Reynold Higgins, Tanagra and the Figurines (London: Trefoil Books, 1986)
I. Kriseleit and G. Zimmer (eds.), Bürgerwelten (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994), no. 11
Violaine Jeammet, ed., Tanagras. Figurines for Life and Eternity. The Musée du Louvre's Collection of Greek Figurines (Valencia: Fundación Bancaja, 2010)
Illustrated catalogue of the series of Fritz Gurlitt's Tanagra figures (London: Obach and Co., 1885), no. 1
Griechische Terracotten aus Tanagra und Ephesos im Berliner Museum (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1878), no. 13 - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Berlin, Antikensammlung (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.