DAEDALIC, CIRCA 7TH CENTURY B.C.

细节

A GREEK TERRACOTTA PLAQUE
DAEDALIC, CIRCA 7TH CENTURY B.C.
The rectangular plaque with two standing figures, on the left Menelaus, his hair falling in curls down his back with his arms outstretched, facing, on the right, Helen, wearing a tightly fitting ankle-length robe, her arms outstretched, between them a dagger falling to the ground
2¾ x 1½ in. (7 x 3.8 cm.)

来源

The Thétis Collection, Geneva, Switzerland; acquired prior to 1970.

注意事项

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.

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拍品专文

The scene depicted is immortalised in Euripedes' The Trojan Women; after the fall of Troy, the Trojan queen Hecube beseeches Menelaus to punish Helen, crying: 'Kill her, Menelaus'. However, once Helen is brought before him, her beauty once more bewitches him, and seeing the gravity of the situation she starts to seduce him. Hecube warns him that Helen will betray him again, but Menelaus is powerless to resist his wife's advances and drops his dagger to the floor.

Greek craftsmen adopted the Near Eastern method of mould-making terracotta figures and plaques in circa 700 B.C., with this new mass-manufacturing technique quickly spreading throughout the Greek world.

For similar Daedalic plaques, cf. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 53.5.10-13 and 53.5.16., and O. Pilz, 'The Contexts of Archaic Cretan Terracotta Relief Plaques with a Note on the Oxford Plaques from Papoura', in G. Deligiannakis and Y. Galanakis eds, The Aegean and its Culture, British Archaeological Reports 1975, Oxford, 2009, pp. 47-57.