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A Female Figure of the Plastiras Type

Price on Request

Net for Export

Early Mediterranean

Early Cycladic I, 3200 - 2800 B.C.

Marble

Height: 18.9 cm

Width: 4.0 cm

Depth: 2.0 cm

Although starkly upright, the frontality of the female body is belied here by refined anatomical details at the rear. The face is an elongated oval, mouth indicated by a horizontal line, with drilled eyes not quite aligned. Plastically rendered nose and ears (one covered by encrustations). Remarkably, the skull is sensitively modelled with a continuous line extending from the mandible towards the rear, delineating the occipital bone from the neck, which is comparatively thick and broadening towards the shoulders. The slim shoulders are squared, with arms bent at ninety-degrees at the elbow to rest beneath shallow breasts. The arms are not crossed, but instead hands are separated by a thin vertical line, with fingers summarily indicated. The abdomen is visibly swollen, with three incised lines at the top edge perhaps indicating the loose skin of a recently post-partum woman. This physiognomic detail occurs in a small group of other known examples, although its significance in the third millennium B.C. is not well understood. Beneath the swell of the belly, a round drilled navel and slightly depressed pubic triangle. The legs are straight and carved separately along their entire length with slightly protruding knees. Block-shaped feet with flat bottoms and three toes indicated on each. The spine is rendered by a shallow groove from nape of the neck to cleft of buttocks. Slightly arched lower back with two "Venus dimples" over the buttocks, rendered by slightly asymmetrical round drill holes. White, medium-grained marble with encrustations, particularly at the back. Small circular divot above right eye, likely an abandoned attempt to render the right eye. Complete. Joining breaks at upper right thigh and beneath right knee reattached with minor filling. Joining break at neck with small filling laterally. Chip to right heel filled.

PROVENANCE

Formerly priv. coll. Tsekenis, Paris, since the 1960's. Thence by descent in the family. Published: Pat Getz-Preziosi, “An Early Cycladic sculptor”, Antike Kunst, vol. 18, n°2, 1975, pp. 47-50, pl. 20, 4-6; Pat Getz-Gentle, Personal Styles in Early Cycladic Sculpture, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2001, p. 9-10, Fig. 4.

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