Description:
A hilarious terracotta made of red-brown clay, depicting a slave with grotesque and exaggerated features. He is striding forward with large steps and is carrying a pointed amphora on his left shoulder, steadying it with his left hand. However, the man is holding the amphora upside down, and he seems to realise that he has just lost its contents: he has a frightened look, slightly pulls his head between his shoulders, and touches his head in horror with his right hand.
He is wearing a short loin cloth which is caught up over his left hip. He has a furrowed brow and short curly hair, showing that he has a receding hairline. A floral garland is draped around his neck.
The most striking feature is of course his gigantic phallus, which dangles between his legs.
The back side, which is rounded at the base, has been smoothed and has a round firing hole, above which the spine is visible.
Grotesque and exaggerated figurines were produced in late Hellenistic times, especially in Alexandria. The artisans, fascinated with realism, started to reproduce scenes and figures from daily life, and seemed to have a preference for emphasis on ill and deformed persons. Some have caricature features; these are usually referred to as grotesques. As Török has remarked, especially the world of the lower social strata was represented - with express malice - in Hellenistic terracottas.
Published:
Christian E. Loeben - André B. Wiese, Köstlichkeiten aus Kairo! Die ägyptische Sammlung des Konditorei- und Kaffeehaus-Besitzers Achille Groppi (1890-1949) (Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig; Hannover, Museum August Kestner, 2008), p. 50, fig. 45.
Dating:
Egypt, Alexandria, late Hellenistic - Roman period, second-first century B.C. or shortly after.
Size:
Height: 14.5 cm.
Literature:
Jean-Pierre Cèbe, La caricature et la parodie dans le monde romain antique des origines à Juvénal (Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, 206) (Paris, De Boccard, 1966);
Françoise Dunand, Terres cuites gréco-romaines d'Égypte (Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des antiquités égyptiennes; Réunion des musées nationaux, 1990);
Cornelia Ewigleben - Jochen von Grumbkow (Hrsg.), Götter, Gräber & Grotesken. Tonfiguren aus dem Alltagsleben im römischen Ägypten (Bilderhefte des Museums für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, 25) (Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1991);
Jutta Fischer, Thomas Zachmann a.o., Griechisch-römische Terrakotten aus Ägypten. Die Sammlungen Sieglin und Schreiber (Tübinger Studien zur Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte, 14) (Tübingen, Wasmuth, 1994);
Mette Fjeldhagen, Graeco-Roman Terracottas from Egypt. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, 1995);
Christian E. Loeben - André B. Wiese, Köstlichkeiten aus Kairo! Die ägyptische Sammlung des Konditorei- und Kaffeehaus-Besitzers Achille Groppi (1890-1949) (Basel, Antikenmuseum und Sammlung Ludwig; Hannover, Museum August Kestner, 2008);
László Török, Hellenistic and Roman Terracottas from Egypt (Bibliotheca Archaeologica, 15; Monumenta antiquitatis extra fines Hungariae reperta, quae in Museo artium Hungarico aliisque museis et collectionibus Hungaricis conservantur, 4) (Roma, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1995).
Provenance:
Private collection of Achille Groppi (1890–1949), Cairo and Switzerland, thence by descent. With Christie's London, sale 4909 of 9 December 1992 (The Per-neb Collection of Important Egyptian Antiquities), lot 1 (illustrated in the catalogue); thence Swiss private collection of Christian von Faber-Castell, Kusnacht (known as the Erotika Collection); thence with Cahn Auktionen, Basel, 9 November 2013, lot 61.
Achille Groppi was the son of Giacomo Groppi, a Swiss patissier, chocolatier and enterpreneur, who established the renowned Café Groppi in Cairo in 1924. Achille began collecting Egyptian art at the age of around 30, in the early 1920s, acquiring objects from amongst others authorised art dealers in Cairo, such as Nahman, Tano and Khawam. A few years before his death, a list of objects from his collection was drawn up for legal export to Switzerland on behalf of Etienne Drioton, then Director of the Department of Antiquities in Egypt (Loeben - Wiese (2008), p. 49-51).
Condition:
Slightly worn at the right shoulder and minor chipping at the back at the edge of the base, else intact.
€ 3,500
Stock number:
E1381