A Terracotta Statuette of a Comic Actor
Greek, probably Boeotian, 4th century B.C.
Orange clay
Height: 12.0 cm
Width: 7.1 cm
Depth: 6.4 cm
Price on Request
Net for Export
The grotesque-looking male figurine wears the typical costume of a comic actor, also known from Attic vase painting and the South Italian phlyax vases: a close-fitting short tunic padded at the belly and buttocks, and a tied-on phallus of which the base is still preserved. On his head he wears a conical cap. The mask, with an opening for the mouth, has satyr-like facial features and ends on the sides in large protruding ears. The upper body is covered with a cloak; the bent arms and hands, completely hidden beneath it, hold it together. The still-preserved bent right thigh suggests that the actor is depicted standing in a slightly stooped posture. Made from a two-part mold, with the joining seams still clearly visible. Legs lost except for the right thigh. Head reattached. Rests of the white slip (ground layer) preserved; the figure was once painted, and a trace of red color is still visible on the underside of the garment.
PROVENANCE
With Galerie Brummer, Manhattan, New York; acquired 21.09.1938 from Theodoros A. Zoumpoulakis, antique dealer (active between 1920-1934) in Athens (according to an inventory card on which the actor is illustrated with inv. P15088). A 1948 photograph in the Brummer Archive shows the figurine presented in a showcase in the "Classical Room" of the gallery. With Sotheby's New York, 08-09.06.1949. Thereafter Belgian priv. collection. Thence by descent.
NOTE
On the type, cf. Louvre, Paris, Inv. CA 376; MFA Boston, Inv. 01.8013; on the posture a terracotta figurine of an actor from Olynthos, see D. M. Robinson, Excavations at Olynthos, Part VII. The terracottas of Olynthos found in 1931 (Baltimore 1933) 78, no. 297, pl. 37. – The Greek theater has its origins in the cult of Dionysos. At the Great Dionysia, the multi-day festival held in honor of the god Dionysos, tragic and comic agones were staged in the Theater of Dionysos in Athens from the late 6th cent. B.C. onward, followed by the honoring of the victors. From the so-called Old Comedy (ca. 425–388 BC), the New Comedy (floruit ca. 320–280 BC) developed during the course of the 4th century B.C. after a brief transitional phase. Turning away from topical, often political affairs, it now focused on everyday problems within Athenian society and the humorous entanglements arising from them, drawing on a repertoire of recurring motifs and stock characters. The collective significance of the theater is reflected in contemporary monuments, especially in coroplastic art and vase painting. From the 5th cent. B.C. onward, an standardization of actor types can be observed. In the late Classical and Hellenistic period the mould-made figurines enjoyed great popularity and appear in domestic, sacred, and also funerary contexts. A striking example of the latter use is a group of fourteen terracotta actor figurines from an Attic grave find in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Inv. 13.225.13 (as part of the group). As a literary source for the various mask types, the primary reference is the lexicon of the rhetor Julius Pollux, who lived in the 2nd cent. A.D. and, in his Greek work Onomastikon, lists several mask types from Greek tragedy, New Comedy, and the satyr play (4, 133–154).