Description:
A wonderfully modelled Egyptian head, made of natural buff brown clay. Heads like this, and also complete figurines, were produced in late Hellenistic times, especially in Alexandria. The artisans, fascinated with realism, started to reproduce scenes and figures from daily life. Many figurines exist of children as well as old people, with a certain emphasis on ill and deformed persons. Some have caricature features; these are usually referred to as grotesques. It has been suggested that they were influenced by the exaggerated features of theatrical masks.
On our head the forehead is furrowed and the knitted brow is thickened. The heavy eyebrows, frowning angrily, and the piercing eyes are rendered in sharp relief. The nose is slightly flattened. The lips are parted, which adds to the angry expression. The face is surrounded by short, curly hear, on top of which a draped bonnet is visible. Altogether this head displays a somewhat unpleasant, angry look. As Török has remarked, the knitted brow and the shape of the mouth are features which associate the type with the world of the lower social strata represented with express malice in Hellenistic terracottas.
Literature:
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);
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);
Françoise Dunand, Terres cuites gréco-romaines d'Égypte (Paris, Musée du Louvre, département des antiquités égyptiennes; Réunion des musées nationaux, 1990), p. 210-276 with many examples.
Dating:
Hellenistic – Roman Period, ca. 200 B.C. – 200 C.E.
Size:
Height 5.5 cm, width 4 cm, depth 4.5 cm; height including base 13 cm.
Provenance:
Private collection, acquired from Arte Primitivo, New York; ex Secret Eye Gallery, New York, acquired in the 1970s.
Condition:
Fragment from a larger figure, with some of the usual minor damage and losses, as visible on the photographs; mounted; superb modelling.
SOLD
Stock number:
E0684