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Lot Essay
The scale and quality of this figure is unusual in bronze, if not unique, for the "naked female" or "seductress" type found throughout the ancient Near East in the 2nd and 1st millennia B.C. Although her meaning and identification is still a matter of debate, she can likely be positively identified as a deity due to her position upon a plinth.
Bahrani examines the Near Eastern attitudes toward female nudity and sexuality in "The Hellenization of Ishtar: Nudity, Fetishism, and the Production of Cultural Differentiation in Ancient Art," in Oxford Art Journal, vol. 19, no. 2. She interprets the depiction of the nude woman in a frontal position with her hands cupping her breasts as an overt sexual statement meant to tempt the male viewer (op. cit., pp. 9-12).
For a female figure in bronze of similar form, though smaller, joined to a tripod support now in the Louvre, see no. 575, p. 402 in Amiet, Art of the Ancient Near East. For a figure in ivory from Nimrud of similar scale and voluptuous figure, dated to the 8th century B.C., see no. 174, p. 330 and pp. 400-401, in Giullini, et al., La Terra Tra I Due Fiumi.
Bahrani examines the Near Eastern attitudes toward female nudity and sexuality in "The Hellenization of Ishtar: Nudity, Fetishism, and the Production of Cultural Differentiation in Ancient Art," in Oxford Art Journal, vol. 19, no. 2. She interprets the depiction of the nude woman in a frontal position with her hands cupping her breasts as an overt sexual statement meant to tempt the male viewer (op. cit., pp. 9-12).
For a female figure in bronze of similar form, though smaller, joined to a tripod support now in the Louvre, see no. 575, p. 402 in Amiet, Art of the Ancient Near East. For a figure in ivory from Nimrud of similar scale and voluptuous figure, dated to the 8th century B.C., see no. 174, p. 330 and pp. 400-401, in Giullini, et al., La Terra Tra I Due Fiumi.
