Anatolian, 3rd millennium B.C.

Marble

H: 14.3 cm

Serial: 18988

The dimensions of this piece, which can be classified in the category of the schematic "idols" in the shape of violins, are somewhat larger than the average of these objects. It was carved from a small block of thin marble, the surface of which is smooth and polished; facial details have been incised or are in relief, while the circular, regular eyes seem to have been worked with a sort of drill and might have been inlaid. The figurine is complete and almost intact.

The silhouette corresponds more or less to that of many idols dated to the Neolithic or to the early Bronze Age, which recall the outline of a violin. The most important differences, which make this piece a unique and somewhat isolated image, appear on the head and in the drawing of the legs: here, the face is clear indicated and delimited by the triangular chin and by the continuous, horizontal line of the eyebrows (or of the hair?), the nose is prominent, the mouth seems barely arched, the round eyes are deeply set; the lower body, semi-circular in shape, shows on each side a notch which could correspond to the knees, but which is hard to explain taking into account the usual form known through typological parallels. This piece could be tentatively interpreted as a sort of intermediate stage between the seated steatopygic figures and the largely widespread violin-shaped "idols".

Contrary to the Cycladic islands where stone figurines in the shape of violins disappeared in the early 3rd millennium, in western Anatolia the tradition of schematic statuettes was also attested during the Early Bronze Age: the Beycesultan type, the Kusura type (ca. 3000-2500 BC) and their intermediate forms are among the most widely known groups and are fairly close to the general forms of our example.

Provenance 

Ex- European private collection, acquired in the 1960’s; US Art Market, New York, 1990s; Christie’s, New York, 7 December 2006, lot 68.

Bibliography

THIMME J. (ed.), Kunst und Kultur der Kykladen, Karlsruhe, 1975, pp. 54-59, pp. 178-189, n. 1-52, n. 500-534.