Charles Ede Ltd (London), Greek and Roman Terracottas (November 1975) no. 8 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 84.

1975.18

Figurine of a Standing Woman

Purchased. Ht incl. base 18.4cm.

Intact but somewhat worn. Grey-buff clay; rectangular vent hole in the back; rectangular plinth with mouldings above and below. Abundant traces of white slip but no colour is preserved save for some red about her face and hair.

The young woman stands with right leg relaxed and carrying an open box on her left arm. She wears a sleeveless peplos and holds the hem of the overfall with her right hand. Her hair is waved at the front and has a central parting.

The fabric is Boeotian and the terracotta has a close counterpart in one published by Goldman and Jones, “Terracottas from the Necropolis of Halai”, Hesperia 11, 1942, 365-421, pl. XII bottom right, although the latter has a different hairstyle. The type may nevertheless derive from Attic. Compare in general S. Mollard-Besques, Catalogue raisonné des figurines et reliefs I (Paris 1954) pl. 64, C 5l, dated to the end of the fifth century BC. To judge by the form of the figure, the slope of the shoulders and the nature of the plinth, ours could well be much later, perhaps the earlier part of the third century or even later than that.

The figure may reasonably be understood as a representation of everyday life, but it is also reminiscent of the figures shown standing by tombs, for instance in South Italian vase-painting, with boxes of offerings, or of women making offerings at a sanctuary, especially when one notices the angle at which the box is held: it is displayed to the viewer. The general type was also popular in Cyprus: A. Caubet et al., L’art des modeleurs d’argile. Antiquités de Chypre. Coroplastique, ii (Paris 1998) nos 838-843.

Women are often shown in both Attic and Apulian red-figure as carrying a container or having one brought to them, whether a box or basket, and the motif occurs not infrequently in funerary reliefs also. (This figurine was doubtless found in a grave.) One may suppose that it contained personal belongings that the woman regarded as a precious, perhaps objects such as inherited jewellery that she brought with her to her marriage. The fullest description and discussion of the motif is that by E. Brummer, “Griechische Truhenbehälter”, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 100, 1985, 1-168. There is an interesting briefer discussion by F. Lissarrague, “Women, Boxes, Containers: Some Signs and Metaphors”, in: E.D. Reeder (ed.), Pandora: Women in Classical Greece (Baltimore 1995) 91-101. M. Baggio, “Il sistema degli oggetti femminili nella ceramica tardoapula: segni di rango-segni di prestigio?”, Eidola 9, 2012, 31-54, looks at a number of objects associated with women in later Apulian vase-painting, mostly Baltimore Painter, including such chests or boxes as well as beds (i.e. the marital bed), kalathoi (wool-baskets, signifiers of their homely activities), and parasols (regarded as objects of high prestige). A fascinating example is to be found on an Attic red-figure neck-amphora nowadays in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: in a scene of Ajax seizing Kassandra from by the statue of Athena at the fall of Troy, her maid moves away clutching Kassandra’s box: Beazley Archive Pottery Database 213744, J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (2nd ed., Oxford 1963) 1058, 114. It is a remarkable (and possibly unique) statement of Kassandra’s womanly status and character in the chaos of that terrible night.

For a very simple but therefore telling representation from a demonstrably funerary context, see for example A. Temür, “Thoughts on a Grave Stele from the Classical Period in Samsun Museum”, Belleten (Türk Tarih Kurumu) 286, 2015, 817-825. M.I. Pologiorghi, “Ἱερὸ Ἀρτέμιδος Βραυρωνίας: Τὰ ξύλινα εὑρήματα τῶν ἀνασκαφῶν 1961-1963”, Archaiologike Ephemeris 154, 2015, 123-216 (with English summary), publishes a number of such wooden objects that had been preserved in the sanctuary at Brauron in Attica. Note also G. Renda, “Un cofanetto del Museo Campano di Capua tra iconografia e collezionismo”, Orizzonti 20, 2019, 67-80.

Charles Ede Ltd (London), Greek and Roman Terracottas (November 1975) no. 8 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 84.