Phoenician Votive Terracotta Figure

With small flared foot, broad body and rounded shoulder, everted rim and two loop handles to the shoulder; painted bands of linear ornament. 280 grams, 15 cm



Acquired from Gallery Gryphos, Munich, 2000s. European private collection.

Deposits from Mycenae, Korakou and Nichoria are relatively rich in painted jugs, small stirrup and piriform jars. The pattern usually employed on piriform jars preserves a rim decoration of short strokes, neck being solidly painted. Following an usual syntax, a line group appears on the upper shoulder below the neck. Bases are solidly painted, except for an occasional thin reserved area on the lower base edge.

With a small, stylised face with detailed eyes, nose and mouth; right hand raised to hold a child; wearing a flounced skirt with double belt; mounted on a custom-made display stand. 499 grams total, 16.5 cm high including stand



British private collection, acquired by 2000. From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

In the Dictean Cave in Greece, many votive statuettes of this type were found. The flounced skirt is characteristic of Minoan women's dress, and it was lavishly decorated in folds of different colours. It could be worn with or without a narrow corselet, but in both cases exposing the breast. The exposed breast was connected to the cult of the mother goddess, and fertility, an element here reinforced by the presence of the suckling child.

Piriform bodied with U-shaped spout and high handle, polychrome painted egg, zigzag, bar, dot and laurel pattern with a flower arranged in rows to the front face. 193 grams, 20.2 cm high



Acquired in Europe before 2001. European collection.