Goddesses and Horsemen: Greek Terracottas from Boeotia

Two goddesses, two horses, and the head of a third goddess: five Greek terracottas, now together in the gallery. Three stand out.

The Boeotian plank goddess, ca. 550–500 BC, belongs to a type known as “Papades,” a name taken from the figures’ tall, priestly crowns. She is hand-modeled and nearly flat, with short peg arms and a rolled lock of hair on the forehead under her polos. Her garment is painted in brown-red slip. A comparable example is in the British Museum.

The second goddess, also from Boeotia and dated ca. 650–500 BC, is larger, at 7⅝ inches. She stands with arms outstretched, and her face and radiating headdress are painted directly onto the clay.

The horse and rider, Boeotia, 6th century BC, reduces horseman and mount to a few lean shapes: long legs, a prominent snout, and a crested mane, with traces of umber stripes. In Archaic Greece a horse was a mark of standing, and these small riders carried that meaning in clay.

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Greek Boeotian Terracotta Pappades Plank Idol

Aegean, central Greece, Archaic period, mid-to-late 6th century BC, ca. 550–500 BC. Hand-modeled buff terracotta, nearly two-dimensional, with a tapering plank body rising from an oval/ledge foot ring, short peg arms projecting and slightly forward-tapering at the shoulders, and a deeper, rounded head rising on a cylindrical neck and a geometric garment panel of vertical and hatched strokes in iron-oxide brown/red slip. The head wears an arched polos crown with a prominent inwardly rolled volute/quiff on the forehead — the defining feature that identifies the figure as a goddess (commonly interpreted as Demeter, Hera, or Persephone), and the reason these idols are also called Papades after their priestly/crowned appearance. These flat, plank-bodied goddess figures are one of the most distinctive votive/funerary types of Archaic Boeotia, produced at centers such as Tanagra, Thebes, Ritsona, and Akraiphia, and recovered primarily from cemeteries and sanctuaries. They sit at the pivotal Archaic moment when Greek artisans are moving from the flat, frontal, stiff conventions inherited from Egyptian, Phoenician, and Syrian prototypes toward the fully three-dimensional treatment of the...

$2,450.00

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Greek Archaic Polychrome Painted Pottery Goddess

Aegean, Boeotia, Ca. 650 to 500 BC. A standing female with outstretched arms and flatly rendered body, slightly rounded head wearing and arched polos (crown) and with ornate slip painted decoration including distinctive painted facial features and radiant headdress. This is the time in Greek art where there is experimentation and discovery on how to render the human form, which is not quite liberated into three dimensions yet. In marble they are producing the kore (girl) and kouros (youth) which is somewhat flat and stiff. The influence and genesis for this style comes from exposure to eastern trade where they see the sculpture in Egypt, Phoenician and Syria and in a few hundred years will lead to the glory of the Hellenistic style. Size: 7-5/8 inches (19.3cm.) high. + custom mount. Body with repairs and wear to extremities and pigment losses. Nice deposits. Provenance: Private Virginia collection, acquired 1990s.

$2,000.00

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Ancient Greek Geometric Terracotta Horse and Rider

Boeotia, Ca 6th Century BC. A buff terracotta votive of a stylized equestrian with the animal, standing in alert attitude in stylized slender limb form with prominent snout, pronounced mane, slender tail and rider. Traces of umber painted pigment to surface as decoration. Size 4 inches (10cm) H; Condition: paint ear, encrustations and two legs repaired. Provenance: Private California Collection

$1,800.00

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