Fiigurine of semi-nude woman sitting on rock
- Title:
- Fiigurine of semi-nude woman sitting on rock
- Collection:
- Cornell Cast Collection
- Creator:
- Gebrüder Micheli, Berlin (reproduction)
Unknown (original)
- Photographer:
- Mericle, Danielle
- Date:
- ca. 1890-1900
late 19th c.
- Site:
- Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
probably Greece
acquired by the Berlin State Museums in 1876 (original) - Location:
- Goldwin Smith Hall, former Temple of Zeus space, Cornell University
previously, 726 University Avenue
Berlin, Germany (reproduction)
probably Greece
acquired by the Berlin State Museums in 1876 (original) - ID Number:
- CCC_0592
- Accession Number:
- Sage no. 464
black point sticker
599 - File Name:
- CCC_0592.tif
- Original Measurements:
- 21.8 (H) cm
- Culture:
- Greek
- Style/Period:
- modern, in Hellenistic Greek style
- Work Type:
- casts (sculpture)
- Materials/Techniques:
- plaster cast (sculpture)
terracotta sculpture in the round, mold-made (original) - Subject:
- Tanagra figurines
- Image View Type:
- overall
- Image View Description:
- from side
- Measurement:
- 23.3 (with pedestal) x 21.1 (without pedstal) (centimeters, height x height)
13 x 17.7 (centimeters, width x diameter) - Description:
- This is a plaster cast of a 19th c. forgery of a Tanagra figurine housed in Berlin. The youthful woman sits with her legs crossed at the ankles in a reclining pose on a rock that has an elevated back. Her legs are draped and she is nude from the upper thighs up. She twists her torso slightly to her left. Her left hand rests at her side and she holds a round object in her right hand, raised to chest level. Her curly hair is parted in the middle and tied in a bun high on her head. She wears a thick fabric headband fastened at the front with a small, circular knot or brooch. Earrings are indicated with a dot of black paint. The hair and round object are reddish brown, the skin pale pink, and the remainder is beige with some stippling. The cast maker's mark, partly illegible, is inscribed at the side of the base: "Eigth: Gebrüder . . . Berlin" (sc. Eigenthum: Gebruder Micheli Berlin). The burial sites in and around the Boeotian town of Tanagra underwent large-scale looting in the 1870s in pursuit of Hellenistic terracotta figurines known then, as now, as Tanagra figurines, or simply as Tanagras. The Hellenistic figurines discovered in the graves there--most commonly depicting women and girls in acts of leisure or daily life, and also depicting Aphrodite, Eros, young men and boys, and grotesque figures--appealed greatly to the sensibilities of the time and quickly became popular among collectors and the general public. By 1873, the Greek government made attempts to control the looting and established official excavations around the area. Smaller-scale grave-robbing continued alongside these less-than-thoroughly documented excavations. In addition to looting, forgery and extensive restoration of these mold-made objects became lucrative practice when demand for the objects was at its highest. Many major museums acquired such fakes, and, with the use of thermoluminescence dating, some 20% of the collection of Tanagra figurines in the Berlin Antikensammlung have been shown to be modern creations (Goedicke in Kriseleit and Zimmer, 80).
- Notes:
- Items in the Cornell Cast Collection are meant for inventory and reference purposes. Metadata may not be complete in all cases.
TC 7429 - Bibliography:
- Reynold Higgins, Tanagra and the Figurines (London: Trefoil Books, 1986)
I. Kriseleit and G. Zimmer (eds.), Bürgerwelten (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1994), no. 84
Illustrated catalogue of the series of Fritz Gurlitt's Tanagra figures (London: Obach and Co., 1885), no. 7
Violaine Jeammet, ed., Tanagras. Figurines for Life and Eternity. The Musée du Louvre's Collection of Greek Figurines (Valencia: Fundación Bancaja, 2010)
Griechische Terracotten aus Tanagra und Ephesos im Berliner Museum (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1878), no. 2 - Repository:
- Cornell University (current)
Berlin, Antikensammlung (original) - Collecting Program:
- Cornell Collections of Antiquities
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- The images in the Cornell Collection of Antiquities: Casts are protected by copyright, and the copyright holders are their creators, generally Cornell University Library, Annetta Alexandridis, and Verity Platt. This collection of plaster casts owned by Cornell University was photographed by Cornell University Library, Alexandridis, Platt, and Andreya L. Mihaloew from 2010-2015, with funding from a Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences Grant to Annetta Alexandridis. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Please contact Annetta Alexandridis and Verity Platt for more information about this collection, or to request permission to use these images.