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Lot Essay
Among the striking characteristics of this sensual bronze is the depiction of a female dancer in such a risqué costume. According to Bonfante (Etruscan Dress, p. 19ff.), since Minoan times, women wore various types of perizoma especially in the context of a performance, either as an acrobat or dancer. The wearing of the perizoma by women performers and athletes continued through to the late Roman Period, as depicted in the famous 4th century A.D. mosaics from Piazza Armerina, in which female athletes don bikini-like attire.
To the Greeks, however, such bodily exposure was considered indecent for women. As Bonfante informs (op. cit., p. 21), "dancing girls dressed in this way were likely to be confused with courtesans." Bonfante cites the primary source Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae (13:607c) in which he shares the effect that such dancers might have on a group of men enjoying such entertainment for the first time: "But when the drinking was going on apace and there entered, among other entertaining shows, those Thessalian dancing-girls who danced, as their custom is, in loincloths without other covering, the men could no longer restrain themselves, but started up from their couches and shouted aloud at the wonderful sight they were seeing..."
For the footwear, see fig. z.1, p. 103 in Sebesta and Bonfante, The World of Roman Costume, which comes from a courtier depicted on a mosaic in Ravenna.
To the Greeks, however, such bodily exposure was considered indecent for women. As Bonfante informs (op. cit., p. 21), "dancing girls dressed in this way were likely to be confused with courtesans." Bonfante cites the primary source Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae (13:607c) in which he shares the effect that such dancers might have on a group of men enjoying such entertainment for the first time: "But when the drinking was going on apace and there entered, among other entertaining shows, those Thessalian dancing-girls who danced, as their custom is, in loincloths without other covering, the men could no longer restrain themselves, but started up from their couches and shouted aloud at the wonderful sight they were seeing..."
For the footwear, see fig. z.1, p. 103 in Sebesta and Bonfante, The World of Roman Costume, which comes from a courtier depicted on a mosaic in Ravenna.