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Details
LOT 0055
Cypriot Limestone Head of a Deer
IRON AGE, CIRCA LATE 6TH-EARLY 5TH CENTURY B.C.
7 3/4 in. (982 grams total, 19.7 cm including stand).
Carved in the round with stub antlers to the brow; mounted on a custom-made display stand.
Provenance
Acquired before 1947.
Ex Wood family collection, UK; thence by descent 1970.
Literature
Cf. Karageorghis, V., Cipro, Crocevia del Mondo Mediterraneo orientale 1600-500 a.C., Milano, 2002, fig.405, for a bull in similar style; cf. nearly identical head of a deer of the same period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no.74.57.25.
Footnotes
The deer head probably came from a larger votive terracotta sculpture, which depicted a standing doe, perhaps being led to be sacrificed. The presence of the deer could connect the original terracotta to a sanctuary of Diana, whose sacred animal was the deer.
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