Anthropomorphic female figurine
可否一睹真容？
可以，正在迎客
正对公众展出。
- 核实
- 此状态始于
- 出处
- 博物馆
关于这件雕塑
Of Fragments and Forgeries
These figurines—with their curious faces (sometimes deemed “bird-like”), elaborate headdresses, and emphatic hips—are puzzling. Examples like numbers 1–4 [1998.15.16; 1992.256.12.1–3; 2022.242.1–3; 1969.177.86.1–2] have been found across today’s northern Syria and southeastern Türkiye (Turkey) in sanctuaries and graves dating from the second millennium BCE. Their applied breasts and incised pubic triangles mark them as female, encouraging modern interpretations about fertility and sexuality. Number 5 [1953.118], likely made on the island of Cyprus, shows similar features, attesting to ideas about female bodies shared between distant but connected communities of the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia during the Bronze Age.
继续阅读
Who exactly do they depict? Goddesses or worshippers? Both or neither? Any answers are complicated by wrinkles in their modern stories that raise a more urgent question: are these objects even ancient?
All six figurines moved through the art market without documented findspots, making it difficult to interpret them or even assess their authenticity. Number 6 [1999.252] may be a modern forgery. And while numbers 2–4 [1992.256.12.1–3; 2022.242.1–3; 1969.177.86.1–2] arrived at Harvard as single objects, each, in fact, comprises several pieces that are not original to each other. It is not clear whether the fragments are all ancient, all modern, or a combination of both. Displayed here disassembled, the objects offer a cautionary tale about the uncertainty that accompanies poorly documented paths on the art market.
哈佛藝術博物館
作品信息
- 馆藏编号
- 1953.118
已收入目录
出处
- 哈佛藝術博物館
- 图片： 哈佛藝術博物館 — © President and Fellows of Harvard College
