Lot 37
37
A GREEK TERRACOTTA ACTOR
A GREEK TERRACOTTA ACTOR
A GREEK TERRACOTTA ACTOR
2 More
PROPERTY FROM A NEW YORK PRIVATE COLLECTION
A GREEK TERRACOTTA ACTOR

LATE CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA EARLY 4TH CENTURY B.C.

Details
A GREEK TERRACOTTA ACTOR
LATE CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA EARLY 4TH CENTURY B.C.
7 ¼ in. (18.4 cm.) high
Provenance
Norbert Schimmel (1904-1990), New York, acquired by 1974; thence by descent.
Important Antiquities from the Norbert Schimmel Collection, Sotheby's, New York, 16 December 1992, lot 61.
Literature
O.W. Muscarella, ed., Ancient Art: The Norbert Schimmel Collection, Mainz, 1974, no. 49.
J. Settgast, ed., Von Troja bis Amarna: The Norbert Schimmel Collection, New York, Mainz am Rhein, 1978, no. 89.
J.R. Green, “On Seeing and Depicting the Theatre in Classical Athens,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, 1991, p. 23, n. 27.
Exhibited
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ancient Art from the Norbert Schimmel Collection, 17 September 1975-1 March 1976.
Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum; Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe; Munich, Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, Von Troja bis Amarna: The Norbert Schimmel Collection, New York, 18 March 1978-6 January 1979.

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Lot Essay

Clad in a feathered costume and with his arms outstretched, this figure is related to a number of depictions of actors who performed in the “bird choruses” of Athenian comedy. Atop his head sits a separately-made mask in the form of a wrinkled, bearded man. While H. Hoffmann (in O.W. Muscarella, ed., op. cit.) connects this figure to Aristophanes’ comedy The Birds, first produced in 414 B.C., the tradition of actors in bird costumes has roots in earlier mid 6th century B.C plays. For related examples of similarly dressed actors on a black-figured oinochoe and on a red-figured calyx-krater, see no. 11 and fig. 1.6 in M.L. Hart, The Art of Ancient Greek Theater. For a later Hellenistic figure of an actor dressed as a bird, see the one in the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, inv. no. 1988.34.10.

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