LOT 0041

Large Romano-Egyptian Terracotta Figure of Baubo

PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 332-30 B.C.

6 1/8 in. (373 grams, 15.5 cm).

Modelled as a seated plump female figure; the right hand touching the pubic area beneath the rounded abdomen, wearing a tall headdress of thick braids, falling on her shoulders, smooth back with a vent hole; chipped at left foot and arm.

with Superior Galleries, Los Angeles, USA.
Ex Dr W. Benson Harer, Los Angeles, USA, March 1985.

Exhibited: Robert & Frances Fullerton Museum or Art (RAFFMA), California State University, 1998-2023, with reference no.EL01.098.1998.

Cf. Nagwa Abdelnaby, A.I., ‘Two unpublished Figurines of Women Purifying themselves in the Greco-Roman Museum of Alexandria’ in Bulletin of the Center Payrological, 38 (1), November 2021, pp.645-664, figs.3, lett. A and D.

Baubo was a minor divinity of the Greek mythology, linked to the cult of Demeter and Persephone. The statuette belongs to the second type of Baubo figurines, widespread in the last Ptolemaic and Roman period in Egypt. The Egyptian Baubo figures are split into two groups, and this one belongs to the first group depicting a woman seating frontally whilst holding a musical instrument. In some of these figurines her right hand is touching her genitalia. Many of them were used as amulets or as ex-voto.