Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
Attributed to a Boeotian workshop, this miniature fawn may be part of a larger ensemble by “The Master of the Boston Deer and Fawn,” as originally defined by G. Ortiz (1). The left legs are markedly thicker than the right, which may indicate a preferred profile with the animal facing to the right. The alert, somewhat over-sized head with its pricked-up ears is set at a diagonal to the short neck, while the horizontal back leads to a short tail, now broken off. The pronounced, spur-like hocks accentuate the adolescent quality of the legs that splay out to the four corners of the base. Each upper leg is stamped with a circle containing a central point; the two designs on the legs on the left are somewhat more visible than their counterparts on the right. The underside of the partially corroded base is decorated by a small rectangle enclosed by the larger raised rectangle that comprises the edges of the base.
A great many bronze and terracotta figurines of both domestic and wild animals were dedicated in sanctuaries throughout Greece in the Geometric period (2). Domestic animals were the predominant subjects, reflecting their importance in an economy that was based on agriculture and animal husbandry (3). Deer were sacred to Artemis, who both protected and hunted them, and figurines of deer are numerous at her sanctuaries. Images of deer also appear at sanctuaries for other divinities, including Hera, Athena, and Apollo.
NOTES:
1. For “The Boston Deer and Fawn” from the E. P. Warren Collection, which is said to be from the Kabeirion sanctuary near Thebes, see M. Comstock and C. C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Greenwich, CT, 1971) 5, no. 3 (inv. no. 98.650). For an exhaustive discussion of the products of the master of “The Boston Deer and Fawn,” see J.-L. Zimmermann, “Bronziers bèotiens et cervidès géométriques,” Numismatica e Antichità Classiche (Quaderni Ticinesi) 19 (1990): 9-29. For a bronze Geometric deer in the Princeton University Art Museum, see D. G. Mitten and S. F. Doeringer, Master Bronzes from the Classical World, exh. cat., The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; City Art Museum of St. Louis; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Mainz, 1967) 41, no. 24. For Ortiz’s discussion of a bronze geometric doe on an openwork base in his collection, see his In Pursuit of the Absolute: Art of the Ancient World, The George Ortiz Collection (Bern, 1996) no. 78 n.1.
2. For a thorough discussion of deer images, see F. Brein, Der Hirsch in der griechischen Frühzeit (Vienna, 1969); and E. Bevan, Representations of Animals in Sanctuaries of Artemis and Other Olympian Deities, BAR International Series 315 (Oxford, 1986) 110-14; and ibid., Appendix 8.5, 389-93, which includes bones of deer found at Greek sanctuaries. For deer at Tegea, see M. E. Voyatzis, The Early Sanctuary of Athena Alea at Tegea and Other Archaic Sanctuaries in Arcadia, Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature 97 (Göteborg, 1990) 140-43, pls. 74-76. For bronze deer figurines on bases at Olympia, see W.-D. Heilmeyer, Frühe olympische Bronzefiguren: Die Tiervotive, Olympische Forschungen 12 (Berlin, 1979) 148-51, pl. 87; and no. 721, pl. 253.
3. On the relationship between animal herds, farmsteads, and the Geometric period sanctuary of Olympia, see ibid., 195-97.
Tamsey Andrews and David G. Mitten
