LOT 0090

Greek Terracotta Female Antefix

ARCHAIC, 6TH-5TH CENTURY B.C.

10 1/2 in. (411 grams, 26 cm).

Mould-made figure of a female upper body with tall curved and conical headdress, hair dressed in braids falling to her shoulders and flanking her breasts, arms spread and right hand curled to grip a handle or sword-hilt; beneath, a tapering mounting peg for attachment to a roof.

Acquired in the mid 1980s-1990s.
Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent.
Private collection, since the late 1990s.

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 number no.12207-222349.

Cf. more elaborately modelled example in the British Museum under accession no.1884,1011.2.; see also Bleecker Luce, S. ‘Archaic Antefixes from Cervetri in the University Museum, Philadelphia, PA’ in American Journal of Archaeology, Second Series, Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, vol.XXIV,1920, no.1, pp.27-37, figs.1,3,5 for more simple antefixes in the same style; Smithers, S., ‘Images of Piety and Hope: Select Terracotta Votives from West-Central Italy’ in Newman Bohn, C., Studia Varia, from the J.Paul Getty Museum, Volume I, Malibu, 1993, pp.13-33, fig.2, for similar, without helmet.

The antefix belongs to the typical decorative scheme of alternating figures decorating the tiles at the ends of the eaves of the roof, constituting a serial decoration. It has the form of a female head, the details of which were defined through finely detailed plastic and polychrome painting, now lost. The head is crowned with a helmet, which can help identify her with the warrior goddess Athena.