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Lot Essay
Named after the modern town of Amlash and dating from approximately 1300 to 800 B.C., the term "Amlash" refers to a group of artifacts - including ceramic vessels, bronze tools, and pottery figurines - discovered in burial sites across the Caspian region of northern Iran. Anthropomorphic and zoomorphic pottery figures have been found in tombs placed on altars, suggesting they may have served as offerings to a fertility deity and might have functioned as containers for libations.
The artistic output of the Amlash region is stylistically original and distinctive, characterised by simplified and abstract forms. Amlash ceramics often feature blocky torsos, elongated necks, and stylized limbs, reducing anatomy to its essential forms, which immediately resonated with 20th century artists and art collectors.
This impressively large female figure is depicted nude with voluptuous hips and buttocks. Her disc-shaped face is rendered with a prominent triangular nose and large eyes composed of concentric circles. Concentric circles are also incised as decorative elements over her knees, torso, back and chest with bracelets indicated on both wrists. She is depicted wearing a tall cylindrical headdress adorned with incised cross-hatching. A long straight braid falls from the top of the headdress down over her shoulders. Both ears are pierced and would have likely been decorated with now-lost jewellery.
For a similarly large scale figure, see acc. no. 1987.196 at the Toledo Museum of Art, published in Art of the Eastern World, Hadji Baba Ancient Art, London, 1996, pp. 18-23, no. 6.
The artistic output of the Amlash region is stylistically original and distinctive, characterised by simplified and abstract forms. Amlash ceramics often feature blocky torsos, elongated necks, and stylized limbs, reducing anatomy to its essential forms, which immediately resonated with 20th century artists and art collectors.
This impressively large female figure is depicted nude with voluptuous hips and buttocks. Her disc-shaped face is rendered with a prominent triangular nose and large eyes composed of concentric circles. Concentric circles are also incised as decorative elements over her knees, torso, back and chest with bracelets indicated on both wrists. She is depicted wearing a tall cylindrical headdress adorned with incised cross-hatching. A long straight braid falls from the top of the headdress down over her shoulders. Both ears are pierced and would have likely been decorated with now-lost jewellery.
For a similarly large scale figure, see acc. no. 1987.196 at the Toledo Museum of Art, published in Art of the Eastern World, Hadji Baba Ancient Art, London, 1996, pp. 18-23, no. 6.