Details

LOT 0074

Greek Tarentine Terracotta Head of a Youth

MID 4TH CENTURY B.C.

9 1/8 in. (1.2 kg total, 25.3 cm high including stand).

Possibly depicting Ganymede or Paris, wearing a soft Phrygian cap with everted brim, the hair swept back from the face; almond-shaped eyes with pronounced eyelids, straight nose and fleshy lips; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

Provenance

Acquired early 20th century.
From the collection of Count Henri d'Epinay (1940-2017), Longuenesse, France.

Accompanied by a copy of a French cultural passport no.196149.
Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11824-207736.

Literature

Cf. Reinach, S., Repertoire de la statuarie grecque et romaine, Paris, 1930, pp.471ff., and especially no.7, p.472; Rausa, F., ‘L’immagine del vincitore: L’atleta nella statuaria greca dall’età arcaica all’ellenismo’, in Ludica 2, Treviso and Rome, 1994, pp.136–38; Belli Pasqua, R., La scultura in marmo e in pietra. Catalogo del Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto IV, 1., Taranto, 1995; Hakanen, V., Ganimede in the art of the Roman Campania, Ancient Roman viewers' experience of erotic mythological art, Helsinki, 2022; for similar heads in terracotta see Ferruzza, M.L., Ancient Terracottas from South Italy and Sicily in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2016, nos.19, 20, 21.

Footnotes

The terracotta sculpture appears to have similarities with other Tarentine heads from the early Hellenistic Period. A marble head from Taranto, datable to the end of the 4th century B.C., presents similar elements. The visible character is clearly attributable to Graeco-Roman mythology. The only clue regarding the identity of the head is provided by the Phrygian cap, which narrows down the identification to few characters from Greek mythology: the Trojan prince Ganymede, abducted by Zeus for his beauty and named by him the cupbearer of the gods, or the Trojan prince Paris. There are many representations of Ganymede in a Phrygian cap (Hakanen, 2022, plates 6,12a). However, the third possibility is that the sculpture represents Attis, lover of the goddess Cybele.