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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1979.403
Title
Female Votive Figure
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Etruscan female statuette
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture, statuette
Date
5th century BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Etruria
Period
Archaic period to Classical
Culture
Etruscan
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/303712

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Leaded bronze
Technique
Cast, lost-wax process
Dimensions
8 x 4.7 cm (3 1/8 x 1 7/8 in.)
Technical Details

Chemical Composition: ICP-MS/AAA data from sample, Leaded Bronze:
Cu, 76.53; Sn, 8.9; Pb, 13.87; Zn, 0.009; Fe, 0.16; Ni, 0.05; Ag, 0.07; Sb, 0.13; As, 0.22; Bi, 0.064; Co, 0.009; Au, less than 0.01; Cd, less than 0.001
J. Riederer

Technical Observations: The patina appears as uneven brown patches over smooth olive green. Losses of the surface on the face, hands, and toes reveal the thickness of the upper layer of corrosion, but details are well preserved in the upper olive-green layer on the body.

The figure is a solid cast with surface decoration done in the wax model prior to casting. Casting flaws are present, such as the small holes at the proper right eye and on the drapery near the proper left hand.


Carol Snow and Nina Vinogradskaya (submitted 2002)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Theresa Kuhn Straus, New York (by 1977), sold; to the Fogg Museum.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, David M. Robinson Fund through the Estate of Therese K. Straus
Accession Year
1979
Object Number
1979.403
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
Standing frontally, this small, well-preserved votive figurine holds her arms out at waist level with her palms up. Her short hair, parted in the middle, is ornamented with a decorated band. The figure wears a chiton below a himation, both of which are decorated by a series of circular punch marks—around the neck of the chiton, and along the border of the fold of the himation. Diagonal and shallow folds indicate the flow of her cloak as it drapes over her bent left arm. Both hands are extended outward, palms upturned, although the right hand is missing most of its fingers. The facial features, gestures, and costume of this figure closely resemble those of a votive offering from Ghiaccio Forte, Italy (1). Votive figurines of this type are relatively common in Etruria; most often we see them with similar open-handed gestures (2), although many hold a patera in their right hands. The example from Ghiaccio Forte grasps a knob (pomo). What our female offerer would have held in her mangled right hand remains a mystery.

NOTES:

1. Compare G. Colonna, Santuari d’Etruria, exh. cat., Museo Archeologico Gaio Cilnio Mecenate, Arezzo (Milan, 1985) 158, fig. 8.4A1; the Ghiaccio Forte example, however, is less well preserved, coarser in fabric, and dated somewhat earlier (from the end of the sixth to the fifth centuries BCE) than the Harvard figure. Compare also the female figure previously in the Pomerance collection exhibited in Man in the Ancient World: An Exhibition of Pre-Christian Objects from the Regions of the Near East, Egypt and the Mediterranean, exh. cat., Queens College, Paul Klapper Library (Flushing, 1958) 22, no. 143, pl. 55.

2. These have been described as “the traditional Italo-Roman gesture of prayer” in M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Greenwich, CT, 1971) 178-79, no. 213.


Aimée F. Scorziello

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 2540 Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/18/2018 - 11/15/2018

Subjects and Contexts

  • Ancient Bronzes

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu