Greek

A Greek terracotta figure of a goddess, probably Cybele, Late Archaic, circa 525 - 480 BC

Terracotta

Height: 39 cm

Greek, A Greek terracotta figure of a goddess, probably Cybele, Late Archaic, circa 525 - 480 BC

£ 3,800.00

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Further images

The figure is wearing a long, fitted garment and is seated on a high throne with back rest extending out from behind the shoulders, her feet emerging from beneath her...

Provenance

Collection of Basil W.R. Jenkins, (1945 - 2020) Grover Beach, California. Jenkins was formerly curator at the Fowler Museum at UCLA

Literature

Such statuettes were made as votives to a deity. It is not always clear whether they represent the deity or the dedicator but these enthroned figures wearing elaborate headdresses, and particularly holding a lion, are probably goddesses. Hundreds of such statues were buried in trenches on the Acropolis after the Persians looted and burned Athens in 480 BC, however the type was manufactured in several places. For a similar example of a goddess with a lion, from Rhodes, now in the British Museum, see R. Higgins, Catalogue of Terracottas in the British Museum, London, 1954, p. 67, no. 132, pl. 24. For others in the Metropolitan Museum New York, see acc. no. 1980.303.5 and 06.1115 (for one holding a small animal).

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