.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
With powerful musculature bunched and tensed, the dwarf plants his weight on his right foot and leans back to heft a slender weapon in his upraised hand. The other arm is raised to eye level with the hand in a loose fist. The phallus is over-large, extending nearly to the soles of the feet. The pate is stippled with lightly punched depressions suggestive of short hair. Beneath the furrowed, heavy brow are large eyes with deeply-drilled pupils, a slightly snubbed nose, and a mouth engulfed in a profusion of facial hair, with long locks of the beard bifurcating against the chest.
The present example is one of the finest of some two dozen figures of near exact dimensions and pose to survive from antiquity – a remarkably consistent class of combative dwarfs, with the pugnacious protagonists alternately understood as hurling weapons against an unseen foe or bludgeoning marauding cranes. The latter interpretation hinges on whether the outstretched left hand once throttled a crane, and remains appealing, although no surviving examples preserve the bird. The mythological geranomachy, the battle of pygmies versus cranes, was popular in Greek art since the Archaic period and considered humorous because of the pairing of an imaginary race of “fist-sized” foreigners (pugmē) with an unlikely enemy. Its popularity remained into the Roman period, partly due to the perceived “exoticism” of dwarfs, with staged reenactments of the myth using dwarf performers and live cranes (see Statius, Silvae, 1.6.51-67). More broadly, ancient audiences enjoyed the surprising contrast between the dwarfs’ small bodies and surprisingly adult characteristics.
The present example is one of the few that preserves a weapon in the right hand. Its curvature might be the result of damage rather than an indication of its original form. The body’s robust modelling and exacting attention to detail make it the finest surviving example of the type and suggest a Hellenistic workshop. For similar examples, see nos. 101-104 in M. Garmaise, op. cit; also compare the example in Geneva, Foundation Gandur pour l’Art, inv. no. FGA-ARCH-GR-0100.
The present example is one of the finest of some two dozen figures of near exact dimensions and pose to survive from antiquity – a remarkably consistent class of combative dwarfs, with the pugnacious protagonists alternately understood as hurling weapons against an unseen foe or bludgeoning marauding cranes. The latter interpretation hinges on whether the outstretched left hand once throttled a crane, and remains appealing, although no surviving examples preserve the bird. The mythological geranomachy, the battle of pygmies versus cranes, was popular in Greek art since the Archaic period and considered humorous because of the pairing of an imaginary race of “fist-sized” foreigners (pugmē) with an unlikely enemy. Its popularity remained into the Roman period, partly due to the perceived “exoticism” of dwarfs, with staged reenactments of the myth using dwarf performers and live cranes (see Statius, Silvae, 1.6.51-67). More broadly, ancient audiences enjoyed the surprising contrast between the dwarfs’ small bodies and surprisingly adult characteristics.
The present example is one of the few that preserves a weapon in the right hand. Its curvature might be the result of damage rather than an indication of its original form. The body’s robust modelling and exacting attention to detail make it the finest surviving example of the type and suggest a Hellenistic workshop. For similar examples, see nos. 101-104 in M. Garmaise, op. cit; also compare the example in Geneva, Foundation Gandur pour l’Art, inv. no. FGA-ARCH-GR-0100.