EARLY SPEDOS VARIETY, EARLY CYCLADIC II, CIRCA 2600-2500 B.C.

Details

A CYCLADIC MARBLE RECLINING FEMALE FIGURE
EARLY SPEDOS VARIETY, EARLY CYCLADIC II, CIRCA 2600-2500 B.C.
With a narrow lyre-shaped head, arching back toward the crown, the long, slender triangular nose well centered, the chin pointed, on a slightly-flaring cylindrical neck, offset from the head with a narrow groove peaked at the nape of the neck, the broad shoulders angular, the breasts widely positioned high on the chest, the arms folded right below left, with the deep inner grooves of the upper arms rising nearly to the shoulders, the swelling abdomen marked by a curving groove for the upper edge of the public triangle, contoured grooves along the upper thighs leading into the cleft between the legs, a deep vertical groove peaked at the top of the back, the pronounced buttocks arranged on the same plane as the flat upper surface of the back of the head, preserving pigment for hair at the back of the head and along the back of the neck and the top of the forehead, faint ghosts of pigment preserved for the eyes, brows and mouth
12¾ in. (32.4 cm.) high

Provenance

with Elie Borowski, Basel.
with M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1960s-early 1970s.
Important Classical, Western Asiatic and Egyptian Antiquities, Christie's, New York, 25 January 1979, lot 52.
Private Collection, Swampscott, Massachusetts, 1979-mid 1990s.
Private Collection, Milton, Massachusetts, mid-late 1990s.
with Comenos Fine Art, Boston, 1998.

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Lot Essay

This sculpture is exceptional for the wealth of pigment preserved, especially for the hair at the back of the head. According to P. Getz-Preziosi (pp. 53ff. in Sculptors of the Cyclades, Individual and Tradition in the Third Millennium B.C.), it would have been common practice in this period for the sculptor to embellish figures with blue and red pigment, especially for the eyes, brows and hair. Getz-Preziosi asserts, p. 54 op. cit., that the use of pigment would have imbued a "powerful magical meaning." There is evidence that pigment was also used in human burials. Red was shown to "symbolize blood and hence the restoration of life beyond the grave" and blue was sometimes poured over the human body during funerary rites. The minerals and materials to prepare these pigments have been discovered within some Early Bronze Age burials.
The hairstyle with straight lines extending down along the neck, is not found on other published examples. For extending wavy tresses see figs. 39-40 in P. Getz-Preziosi, Early Cycladic Sculpture.

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