been fastened by a pin to the hair or veil. One very beautiful motive is that of a girl playing with an infant Eros, who flies to her for shelter, and is received with welcome half tinged with dread. Fig. 1 shows a very lovely statuette of this kind, now in the Hermitage Palace. A favourite subject is taken from a game in which one girl carries her playmate on her back, a motive which, though difficult to treat in sculpture, is managed very gracefully in terra-cotta. Other very lovely groups are Aphrodite suckling the baby Eros, or with more than one cupid hovering round her. A very beautiful example (see fig. 2) occurs in the South Kensington Museum (from the Castellani sale). It represents a half-nude figure of Aphrodite reclining on a couch, with two cupids behind holding up a veil, which was coloured blue to form a background to the creamy white of Aphrodite's body.
Technical methods.The Tanagra and other figures are all formed of thin pieces of soft clay pressed into a mould, usually formed in two halves and then stuck together; and they are made hollow so as not to warp and crack in the firing, and have a hole at the back for the escape of moisture during that process. The head is solid and was formed in a separate mould, as were also any accessories, such as fans or mirrors, and arms if they extend away from the body. Replicas of the same figure are often varied by having different heads or accessories; three or four examples have been found from the same mould. After the whole was put together it was usually touched up and finished with modelling tools. The colour was applied after baking: a coating of creamy white lime or chalk all over served as the flesh tint and also as a good ground for the other colours. The hair of the females is always of a rich auburn red, such as the Venetians were so fond of painting in the 16th century; blue was touched on the eyes and crimson on the lips. Drapery, if not white, was usually rose-colour or blue, often with a fringe or bands of gold on the border. Necklaces, earrings, and other ornaments were generally gilt, the gold leaf being applied over a slightly raised surface of slip, as on the Greek vases. Similar examples have been found in tombs at Thebes, at Thespise, and round Athens. Some of the Attica figures are covered, not with the usual non-ceramic colours, but with a real white enamel, the vitrified surface of which is very often slightly decomposed; further coloured decoration was in some cases added over this enamel.
Asia Minor statuettes.A number of places in the west of Asia Minor have yielded large quantities of terra-cotta figures, very similar in size and technique to those of Tanagra, but belonging for the most part to quite a different school of sculpture. Unlike the Tanagra figures, which are rather pictorial in style and deal with genre subjects, those from Smyrna, Cyme, Myrina, and other places in Asia Minor are thoroughly sculpturesque in design, and are frequently miniature reproductions of large statues or groups (see fig. 3).
Fig. 3.—Copy of a statue of Aphrodite from Megara. (Berlin Museum.)
Many of them stand on moulded pedestals, while the Tanagra figures have only a thin slab of clay as a base. The average size of both classes is from 6 to 10 inches high. Very elaborate groups with three or four figures often occur. Dionysiac and Bacchanal subjects are frequently chosen, or scenes from sacred mythology, such as the labours of Heracles.[1] These also mostly date from the 4th century B.C., and the statuettes often appear to be copies from sculpture of the school of Praxiteles or Scopas. One instance is the fine nude figure of Eros as a youth leaning against a cippus, holding a bronze arrow in his hand, in the collection of M. de Branteghem, now in Rome.[2] The whole of it was gilt, which was frequently the case with the Asia Minor statuettes, but rarely so in those of Tanagra.[3] A very beautiful figure of a winged Victory in the same collection (from the Castellani sale) presents the same motive as the colossal Victory of Samothrace (in the Louvre); it supplies the missing right hand, which in the terra-cotta contains a bunch of roses. The drapery of this figure is blue, mottled, or shot with gold. Other figures, from their heights being arranged in even gradations, seem to be copies from some large pedimental sculpture. Unfortunately little is yet known of the various fabriques of these Asia Minor figures, as in most cases their provenance is very doubtful.[4] The Lecuyer collection possessed some groups with several figures forming important compositions. One of these shows two female mourners at a tomb, and a warrior clad in full armour with his horse. The most remarkable group (see fig. 4) is that of a soul led by Hermes Psychopompus to the bark of Charon, who is represented as a bent aged man.
Fig. 4.—A soul about to enter Charon's bark. (Prince Liechtenstein's collection, Vienna; formerly in the Lecuyer collection.)
Hermes, a graceful nude figure, gently urges the shrinking soul—a draped female figure—to the boat, at the brink of the rush-grown Styx. The whole scene is imagined with much tender grace and real pathos, though not highly finished in its details. One of the most important terra-cotta figures yet discovered has recently been brought to England from Smyrna. It is a very beautiful copy of the Diadumenos of Polycletus, which in the details of its modelling reproduces some characteristics of the later school of Praxiteles. The forearms and the legs below the knee are lost; but in breadth
- ↑ Fine examples of all these existed in the collection of M. Lecuyer, which is now dispersed (see Lenormant, Coll. Lecuyer de terre-cuites, Paris, 1884, which is well illustrated with photographs).
- ↑ In a few other examples objects of bronze are placed in the hands of the figures.
- ↑ The lovely series of little figures of dancing cupids from Tanagra, some of which are in the Louvre and others in the South Kensington Museum, were wholly gilt, but the larger statuettes of Tanagra appear to have had gold applied only for special ornaments.
- ↑ For many reasons both finders and dealers usually wish to keep secret where valuable finds are made. In most museums the labels simply repeat the dealer's account (for want of better information), so that the statement of the provenance must usually be accepted with caution.
