DOI issue:
No. 64 (July, 1898)
DOI article:Huish, Marcus Bourne: Tanagra terra-cottas
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21969#0125
Tanagra Terra-cottas
the statuettes, the question naturally arises how
such an incongruity has come to pass as the
relegation to the noisome darkness of a tomb of
such delightful works of art, representing subjects
having so little in common with death and decay ?
The first thought which will probably occur to
any one who looks at these terra-cottas is the air of
simplicity, refinement, and tranquillity which they
assume. These contemporaries of Alexander the
Great are altogether different to the race to which
we have been accustomed in the heroic marble
idealisations of that gigantic age. We recognise
in them portraits of the people in their daily life, as
they passed it, seated in their houses, or pacing the
streets in the bright sunshine.
Herein no doubt lies much of their value.
Take, for instance, some of the specimens which
illustrate this paper, taken from Mr. A. Ionides’s
NO. IO.—A GIRL TOYING WITH EROS TANAGRA
(lonides Collection)
beautiful collection. We have in Nos. 3 and 6 the
ordinary type of figurine, the most easily made,
and hence the most frequent, the pose so contrived
that the pallium covers the limbs, and enables the
whole figure to be cast from a single mould. The
drapery is of the simplest kind, and the hair either
simply curled or confined by a plain fillet. Fig. 10
goes a stage farther : one of the arms is extended
and holds a ball, and the group is completed by
a figure of a child, which for the nonce is turned into
an Eros by the addition of wings. The same applies
to No. 11. At the Burlington FineArtsClub Exhibi-
tion there was a group almost exactly resembling this,
save that it was of a young mother suckling a child.
Here the artist has again, by the addition of wings
to the mannikin, transformed a study from everyday
life into a poetic group of Aphrodite nursing Eros.
Very interesting is the pick-a-back group, No. 7,
where two girls amuse themselves with
the game of ephedrismos, which con-
sisted in one, as the penalty for a forfeit,
having to carry the other a certain dis-
tance. This figurine, unlike the pre-
ceding ones, is assigned to Asia Minor,
in consequence of its more energetic
action, although the simplicity and re-
straint evident in the dress would have
certainly placed it amongst Tanagraean
productions. It, too, shows how much
the artist could do from a single mould.*
One of the most beautiful and life-like
of the groups is Mr. Salting’s Conversa-
tion at the Sarcophagus (No. 1), in which
nothing can exceed the grace or the
vitality of the figures, as one, in the most
unconstrained and easy pose, listens to
the amusing tale which the other is
unfolding and illustrating by her action.
It will be readily understood that the
discovery of these figures, having ap-
parently none of that symbolic and
religious motive which had hitherto been
supposed to be inseparably associated
with funerary objects, gave rise to con-
siderable controversy. Arguments of the
most opposite character were adduced
by the savants of France, Germany, and
Switzerland, who, even now, whilst per-
haps tiring of their disputations, have
not abandoned them.
* The heads were almost always made from
a separate mould and added afterwards—an easy
way of imparting variety to the same torso.
103
the statuettes, the question naturally arises how
such an incongruity has come to pass as the
relegation to the noisome darkness of a tomb of
such delightful works of art, representing subjects
having so little in common with death and decay ?
The first thought which will probably occur to
any one who looks at these terra-cottas is the air of
simplicity, refinement, and tranquillity which they
assume. These contemporaries of Alexander the
Great are altogether different to the race to which
we have been accustomed in the heroic marble
idealisations of that gigantic age. We recognise
in them portraits of the people in their daily life, as
they passed it, seated in their houses, or pacing the
streets in the bright sunshine.
Herein no doubt lies much of their value.
Take, for instance, some of the specimens which
illustrate this paper, taken from Mr. A. Ionides’s
NO. IO.—A GIRL TOYING WITH EROS TANAGRA
(lonides Collection)
beautiful collection. We have in Nos. 3 and 6 the
ordinary type of figurine, the most easily made,
and hence the most frequent, the pose so contrived
that the pallium covers the limbs, and enables the
whole figure to be cast from a single mould. The
drapery is of the simplest kind, and the hair either
simply curled or confined by a plain fillet. Fig. 10
goes a stage farther : one of the arms is extended
and holds a ball, and the group is completed by
a figure of a child, which for the nonce is turned into
an Eros by the addition of wings. The same applies
to No. 11. At the Burlington FineArtsClub Exhibi-
tion there was a group almost exactly resembling this,
save that it was of a young mother suckling a child.
Here the artist has again, by the addition of wings
to the mannikin, transformed a study from everyday
life into a poetic group of Aphrodite nursing Eros.
Very interesting is the pick-a-back group, No. 7,
where two girls amuse themselves with
the game of ephedrismos, which con-
sisted in one, as the penalty for a forfeit,
having to carry the other a certain dis-
tance. This figurine, unlike the pre-
ceding ones, is assigned to Asia Minor,
in consequence of its more energetic
action, although the simplicity and re-
straint evident in the dress would have
certainly placed it amongst Tanagraean
productions. It, too, shows how much
the artist could do from a single mould.*
One of the most beautiful and life-like
of the groups is Mr. Salting’s Conversa-
tion at the Sarcophagus (No. 1), in which
nothing can exceed the grace or the
vitality of the figures, as one, in the most
unconstrained and easy pose, listens to
the amusing tale which the other is
unfolding and illustrating by her action.
It will be readily understood that the
discovery of these figures, having ap-
parently none of that symbolic and
religious motive which had hitherto been
supposed to be inseparably associated
with funerary objects, gave rise to con-
siderable controversy. Arguments of the
most opposite character were adduced
by the savants of France, Germany, and
Switzerland, who, even now, whilst per-
haps tiring of their disputations, have
not abandoned them.
* The heads were almost always made from
a separate mould and added afterwards—an easy
way of imparting variety to the same torso.
103