Catalogue of Ancient Glass, Jewellery and Terracottas from the collection of Mr and Mrs James Bomford (20 November – 12 December 1971, Ashmolean Museum. Oxford) no. 130; Sotheby (London), Sale Cat., 12-13 July 1976, no. 511 (ill.); Sotheby (London), Sale Cat., 10 July 1979, no. 226 (ill.); J.R. Green, Theatre in Ancient Greek Society (London – New York 1994) 130 fig. 5.21; J.R. Green, “Rolling Drunk. A Comic Slave in Canberra and Some Iconographic Conventions”, Numismatica ed Antichità Classica. Quaderni Ticinesi 24, 1995, 189-205; Monuments Illustrating New Comedy (3rd ed. rev. and enlarged by J.R. Green and Axel Seeberg, BICS Suppl. 50, 1995) 3NV 8b, pl. 34a; J.R. Green et al., Ancient Voices – Modern Echoes: Theatre in the Greek World (Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, 2003) 54 no. 21 (colour ill.); A. Quinn, “Smiling Slaves”, Inter-Section 1, 2015, 15 fig. 1.

1979.05

Figurine of a Comic Actor

Purchased. Ht 11.1cm. Formerly in the Bomford and Lawrence-Cesnola collections. Almost certainly from Cyprus

Intact although the surface is a little worn. Rather rough orange-brown clay with some pale inclusions.

The figure is in the form of an actor in the rôle of a slave from comedy, reclining, his right hand over his head, his body leaning to the left against an amphora. He has an elaborate wreath about the mask and, as well as his chiton which comes to his thigh, he wears the typical actor’s tunic which covers the body to ankles and wrists; he also has sandals. The reverse is not modelled, and has a circular vent-hole. The whole is set on a tall base. No traces of colour are preserved.

This figurine is a good example of an important series made in the course of the later part of the third and the second century BC in a number of centres in the Aegean and in Campania in Italy, two areas that were in close touch at this period. Some are figures, like this one, others use the types as a basis for small oil vessels. The subject is a slave from comedy drunk and happy (as the gesture with the right arm shows), lying against a wine amphora, and with a festive wreath about his head.

The type of slave is the most popular one of the period, the Wavy-Haired Leading Slave, mask 27 in the list by Pollux, a character often associated with party-going and the good times. He often has a festive wreath about his head. He is found too in the company of flute-girls or bringing his young master home after an all-night party. The motif of a figure leaning against an amphora is also found in the form of a (non-dramatic) negro in such a pose: see the discussion of that type by A. Adriani, “A proposito di una terracotta tarantina del Museo di Oxford”, in: M.L. Gualandi, L. Massei and S. Settis (eds), Aparchai: Nuove ricerche e studi sulla Magna Grecia e la Sicilia antica in onore di Paolo Enrico Arias (Pisa 1982) 569-574, and earlier, in the form of a satyr leaning against an amphora.

The theatre (and especially the comic theatre) was extremely popular during the Hellenistic period, and representations of actors and their masks became very common motifs on a wide range of materials (compare the fourth-century figurine 1975.19 or the mask on the base of the bowl 1980.11, both in this collection). The humour of comedy and the happy endings that invariably occurred provided a means of escape from the problems of the everyday world. The theatre was also part of the world of Dionysos who was responsible for the pleasures brought by wine, so that the world of the theatre was appropriate as a motif in settings and on objects concerned with the drinking of wine.

For the group to which the figurine belongs, see in the first instance R.A. Higgins, “Magenta Ware”, British Museum Yearbook 1 (1976) 1-32; there are further useful comments by J.G. Szilágyi in Etudes et Travaux 13 (Warsaw 1983) 358-364 and by D. Michaelides, “Το Magenta Ware στην Κύπρο”: in Γ Επιστημονική Συνάντηση για την Ελληνιστική Κεραμική 1991 (Athens 1994) 311-322. For full listing of the theatre-related members of the group, see Monuments Illustrating New Comedy (3rd ed. rev. and enlarged by J.R. Green and Axel Seeberg, BICS Suppl. 50, 1995) 2NV 4-5 and 3NV 1-9 with the further parallels quoted, and then the article by Green mentioned below.

On the role of theatre in Hellenistic society, see J.R. Green, “Théâtre et société dans le monde hellénistique. Changement d’image, changement de rôles", in Realia. Mélanges sur les réalités du théâtre antique. Cahiers du Groupe Interdisciplinaire du Théâtre Antique 6, 1990/1991, 31-49, and Theatre in Ancient Greek Society (London 1994), especially chapters 4 and 5. Others of the same series include many representations of comic slaves, including dancing slaves and the popular type of the slave seated in refuge on an altar.

On the Lawrence-Cesnola Collection, see O. Masson, “Notes sur la collection Lawrence-Cesnola”, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 81, 1957, 33-37, and M. Sternini, La collezione di antichità di Alessandro Palma di Cesnola (Rome 1998) 13. An album of 62 unnumbered plates illustrating the collection was published in London in 1881: Lawrence-Cesnola Collection. Cyprus Antiquities excavated by Major Al. Palma di Cesnola, 1876-1879. Alessandro (1839-1914) was the younger brother of the more notorious Luigi Palma di Cesnola. He stayed in Cyprus first in 1873-74, returning in July 1876. He did not actually conduct much excavation but paid for items brought to him after encouraging locals to explore ancient sites, mostly in the area of Salamis (see the Introduction to A.P. di Cesnola, Salaminia. The History, Treasures and Antiquities of Cyprus [London 1882]; 2nd ed. [London 1884]). His activities came to a halt with the arrival of the British in 1878. In that time he acquired, by his own reckoning, some 14,000 ancient objects. He was able to get a fair amount of material out of the country although some was confiscated at the port of Larnaca in 1878 and handed over to what became the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia. He was largely financed by his father-in-law Edwin H. Lawrence of London and it was in his house in Holland Park that the greater part of the collection was placed. The two of them unsuccessfully attempted to sell the collection as a whole in 1881, following its quasi-advertisement in the album of plates, and it was finally dispersed through a series of sales at Sotheby’s from 1883 onwards.

Our piece was sold at a sale at Sotheby’s (London), 12-14 March 1888, where it was bought for eleven shillings by Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers for his ‘second’ collection. This was his private collection, not the one that formed the core of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Its place in the inventory, as item 744, with illustration, is recorded in “Rethinking Pitt-Rivers. The Database for Pitt-Rivers ‘Second’ Collection; Cambridge University Library (MS Add.9455)” [http://databases.prm.ox.ac.uk/fmi/webd/rethinking_volumes at Volume 2 page 415 & letter (see Add.9455vol2_p405]. On this ‘second’ collection more generally, Pitt Rivers as a collector and the vicissitudes of his museum at Farnham in Dorset (where this piece was probably displayed for a while at least), see several articles in Museum History Journal 7.2, 2014. We do not know precisely how and when the figurine made its way into the Bomford collection, itself a distinguished collection (note the catalogue listed below).

Given the absence of good records, there could be a presumption but no proof that our figurine was found somewhere in the region of Salamis.

Catalogue of Ancient Glass, Jewellery and Terracottas from the collection of Mr and Mrs James Bomford (20 November – 12 December 1971, Ashmolean Museum. Oxford) no. 130; Sotheby (London), Sale Cat., 12-13 July 1976, no. 511 (ill.); Sotheby (London), Sale Cat., 10 July 1979, no. 226 (ill.); J.R. Green, Theatre in Ancient Greek Society (London – New York 1994) 130 fig. 5.21; J.R. Green, “Rolling Drunk. A Comic Slave in Canberra and Some Iconographic Conventions”, Numismatica ed Antichità Classica. Quaderni Ticinesi 24, 1995, 189-205; Monuments Illustrating New Comedy (3rd ed. rev. and enlarged by J.R. Green and Axel Seeberg, BICS Suppl. 50, 1995) 3NV 8b, pl. 34a; J.R. Green et al., Ancient Voices – Modern Echoes: Theatre in the Greek World (Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, 2003) 54 no. 21 (colour ill.); A. Quinn, “Smiling Slaves”, Inter-Section 1, 2015, 15 fig. 1.