Lady of Auxerre

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Lady of Auxerre, Louvre , Paris (Ma 3098)

The Lady of Auxerre , also Kore of Auxerre , is a limestone statuette of Greek art from the archaic period . The approximately in the 3rd quarter of the 7th century BC. The sculpture made since 1909 has been in the Louvre in Paris under inventory number Ma 3098 .

Discovery

The statuette was discovered in 1907 in the depot of the local Musée Saint-Germain in Auxerre and its importance was quickly recognized. In 1909 the Lady of Auxerre was acquired by the Louvre in exchange for a painting by the landscape painter Henri-Joseph Harpignies . Since then it has been one of the most important exhibits of ancient art there. How it got to the Auxerre museum is largely unclear. Claude Rolley's research revealed that it probably came from the collection of an art lover named Edouard Bourgoin. A year after his death, it came into the possession of a Louis David in 1895, who used it as a theater prop. Under unexplained circumstances, it must have been transferred from his possession to the museum's holdings, where it was stored without an inventory. It was there in 1907 that the French archaeologist Maxime Collignon discovered the figure, which he provisionally published the following year.

State of preservation and dimensions

The statuette is 75 centimeters high including the plinth , 65 centimeters without the plinth. The base of the square, not quite cube-shaped plinth is 16.5 × 16.5 centimeters. In contrast to the smooth surface of the sculpture, the remains of a rough pick have been preserved on the plinth. The statuette is made of finely crystalline limestone and was broken into three parts:

  1. Lower body to the bottom of the belt,
  2. Upper body including left upper arm and right hand,
  3. right arm.

The fragments were reassembled in the Louvre. The left half of the face of the statuette, which also has only superficial nicks, has been chipped off. Remnants of red paint from the former painting have been preserved.

description

Lady of Auxerre (detailed view)

It shows a calmly upright female figure. It stands with closed legs, the feet placed side by side rest on the plinth, which was probably originally set into a base . Your left arm is hanging straight down, the left one lies flat on your thigh with your fingers extended. The fingers of the right hand are centered in front of the chest, the right arm is bent. The U-shaped face with its forward-looking eyes is framed by broad strands of pearl. The hair is distributed radially at the highest point of the calotte, four strands each fall over the shoulders and far onto the chest and also cover the upper part of the back. Small curls border the flat forehead, the ears are covered by the strands that run forward to the side. The prominent chin is separated from the wide mouth by a recess that swings back. The corners of the mouth of the sharply drawn lips are tentatively drawn upwards, an archaic smile at best hinted at. The round eyeballs protrude and are framed by almond-shaped lids.

The sitter is dressed in a long chiton , which falls to the plinth, rests there slightly exposed and only leaves her toes uncovered. The chiton hugs the shape of the body, which is shown below as a slight curve. The chiton is belted wide from the waist to the chest. The shoulders are covered by an overturned upper garment called an epiblema . It is pinned in front of the chest and also covers the outside of the arms: left to the wrists, right to the elbows. On the back, which is structured by a recess in the area of ​​the spine, it is guided under the belt.

Incised patterns that were once colored in enrich the depiction of the robes. Nested squares adorn the chiton in the area of ​​the lower body as a falling central border, but also around the lower end of the fabric. The top has a scale pattern. The edges of the epiblema and the upper hem of the chiton below the neck show meander ornaments . Incised bracelets surround both forearms above the wrists.

The stretched, columnar lower body is conveyed to the strongly drawn-in waist in a tight, sharp curve. In the profile view, the buttocks emerge expansively. The short, broad-shouldered upper body with its small, firm breasts grows out of the waist in a triangular shape. The expansive horizontal of the shoulders is emphasized by the horizontal constrictions of the pearl strands and the strictly horizontal arrangement of the forehead curls.

Remnants of red painting in the once more protected areas between the freely worked arms and the upper body bear witness to the former coloring of the sculpture. The reconstruction of the color, implemented on a plaster cast at the University of Cambridge , on the other hand, cannot be based on further findings on the Lady of Auxerre herself, but was developed in analogy to better-preserved examples of ancient polychromy .

Interpretation, origin and dating

Reconstruction of the Lady of Auxerre , Cambridge University

The statuette itself has no attributes that suggest its interpretation. It is committed to a type of statue, which in classical archeology is referred to as Kore ( ancient Greek κόρη kórē , German 'girl' ). The question of whether the portrayed is a goddess or a mortal, therefore an adorantess , is not answered: depending on the context in which they are displayed, Koren could be understood as goddesses, votive offerings or grave statues. Without having any indication of an original installation site, she addressed Maxime Collignon as an adorant because of the lack of attributes, while for Josef Floren she is clearly the representation of a goddess.

The question of its date and origin are connected with the question of the installation. Based on stylistic studies, its temporal dependence on the 660 BC. Created statue of Nikandre recognized. These and other statues represent a "Daedalic" style phase within early archaic art , which is more generally referred to as the orientalizing period . The "Daedal" sculpture was particularly widespread in Crete , represented for example by the "Goddess of Prinias" or the "Goddess of Astritsi". All this led to a generally accepted dating of the statuette in the years 650–625 BC. Accordingly, the Lady of Auxerre is mostly placed in a Cretan context, although many different opinions were represented.

One of the testimonies that was used as a comparison early on was the upper body of a kore that had been found in Eleutherna . The new discovery of a similar Kore from Eleutherna in the 1990s initiated a re-evaluation of the Lady from Auxerre , whose origins from Eleutherna are now widely accepted. The sepulkral context of the discovery of the recently found Kore in Eleutherna leads to the interpretation of the Lady of Auxerre as a grave statue, which was erected in memory of a member of the local upper class in Eleutherna.

  • Comparison pieces

  • Kore from Eleutherna (old find)

  • "Goddess from Prinias"

literature

  • Lauren Adams Gilmour: Orientalizing Sculpture in Soft Limestone from Crete and Mainland Greece (= British Archaeological Reports. Supplementum 42). BAR, Oxford 1978, pp. 32-34.
  • Peter Blome: The figurative imagery of Crete in the geometric and early archaic period. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1982, esp. Pp. 44-45.
  • Maxime Collignon : Statuette féminine de style grec archaïque (Musée d'Auxerre). In: Revue archéologique . 1908, pp. 153-170.
  • Maxime Collignon: La statuette d'Auxerre (Musée du Louvre). In: Monuments et mémoires de la Fondation Eugène Piot. Volume 20, 1913, pp. 5-38, plates 1-2 ( digitized version ).
  • Matteo D'Acunto: La fonction de la plus ancienne sculpture naxienne à Délos et la comparaison avec les productions crétoises dédaliques: sur les débuts de la sculpture monumentale en Grèce. In: Yannos Kourayos, Francis Prost (ed.): La sculpture des Cyclades à l'époque archaïque. Histoire des ateliers, rayonnement des styles. Actes du colloque international organisé par l'Éphorie des Antiquités préhistoriques et classiques des Cyclades et l'École française d'Athènes (7–9 September 1998) (= Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Supplément 48). Ecole Française d'Athènes / De Boccard, Athens / Paris 2008, pp. 133–182, here pp. 164–66 ( online ).
  • Josef Floren : The Greek sculpture. Volume 1: The geometric and archaic sculpture (= handbook of archeology ). CH Beck, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-406-31718-9 , p. 126 f. Plate 6.3.
  • Marianne Hamiaux: Musée du Louvre. Les sculptures grecques. Volume 1: Des origins à la fin du IVe siècle avant J.-C. Second edition. Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris 2001, pp. 43–45 No. 38.
  • Gabriele Kaminski: Daedalic sculpture. In: Peter Cornelis Bol (ed.): The history of ancient sculpture. Volume 1: Early Greek Plastic. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2002, pp. 71–95, here p. 71. 73. 84–86 Figs. 160 a – c.
  • Jean-Luc Martinez: La Dame d'Auxerre. Service culturel du musée du Louvre, Paris 2000.
  • Wolfram Martini : The archaic sculpture of the Greeks. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3-534-03175-X , pp. 133-135.
  • Gisela MA Richter : Korai. Archaic Greek Maidens. A study of the Development of the Kore Type in Greek Sculpture. Phaidon Press, London 1968, p. 32 no. 18, figs. 76-79.
  • Claude Rolley: La provenance de la Dame d'Auxerre. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique . Volume 88, 1964, p. 444-45 ( digitized version ).
  • Claude Rolley: La Sculpture grecque. Volume 1: Des origines au milieu du Ve siècle (= Les manuels d'art et d'archéologie antiques ). Picard, Paris 1994, pp. 128-132, 137-138, figs. 116-117.

Web links

Commons : Lady of Auxerre  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ On the "find circumstances" and the prehistory see Jean-Luc Martinez: La Dame d'Auxerre. Service culturel du musée du Louvre, Paris 2000, pp. 23-25.
  2. ^ Claude Rolley: La provenance de la Dame d'Auxerre. In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique . Volume 88, 1964, p. 444-45 ( digitized version ).
  3. ^ Maxime Collignon: Statuette féminine de style grec archaïque (Musée d'Auxerre). In: Revue archéologique . 1908, pp. 153-170.
  4. ↑ For clothing, see Georgia Kokkorou-Alevras: The Painted Decoration on the Garment of the Nikandre Statue. In: Philippe Jockey (ed.): Les arts de la couleur en Grèce ancienne ... et ailleurs. Approches interdisciplinaires (= Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Supplément 56). Ecole Française d'Athènes, Athens 2018, pp. 115–130.
  5. ↑ Georgia Kokkorou-Alevras: The Painted Decoration on the Garment of the Nikandre Statue stands against an interpretation as bracelets and for an interpretation as sleeve hems . In: Philippe Jockey (ed.): Les arts de la couleur en Grèce ancienne ... et ailleurs. Approches interdisciplinaires (= Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Supplément 56). Ecole Française d'Athènes, Athens 2018, pp. 115–130, here p. 120 note 11.
  6. ^ Maxime Collignon: La statuette d'Auxerre (Musée du Louvre). In: Monuments et mémoires de la Fondation Eugène Piot. Volume 20, 1913, pp. 5-38, here p. 7 f.
  7. ↑ Josef Floren: The Greek sculpture. Volume 1: The geometric and archaic sculpture. CH Beck, Munich 1987, p. 127.
  8. ↑ For this complex of statues, see Costis Davaras: The statue from Astritsi. A contribution to the Daedal art on Kreat and to the beginnings of the Greek sculpture (= ancient art . Supplement 8). Francke, Bern 1972 ( online ); Gabriele Kaminski: Daedalic sculpture. In: Peter Cornelis Bol (ed.): The history of ancient sculpture. Volume 1: Early Greek Plastic. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2002, pp. 71-95, here pp. 84-86, 89-90, 92-93; Marion Meyer , Nora Brüggemann: Kore and Kouros: Consecrations for the gods (= Viennese research on archeology. Volume 10). Phoibos, Vienna 2007, p. 74, no. 141.
  9. ↑ See for example Gisela MA Richter : Korai. Archaic Greek Maidens. A study of the Development of the Kore Type in Greek Sculpture. Phaidon Press, London 1968, p. 32 No. 18; Josef Floren: The Greek sculpture. Volume 1: The geometric and archaic sculpture. CH Beck, Munich 1987, p. 126; Wolfram Martini : The archaic sculpture of the Greeks. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1990, p. 135; Gabriele Kaminski: Daedalic sculpture. In: Peter Cornelis Bol (ed.): The history of ancient sculpture. Volume 1: Early Greek Plastic. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2002, pp. 71–95, here pp. 84–86.
  10. ↑ For further examples from Gortyn see last Antonis Kotsonas: Three Early, Limestone Sculptures from Gortyn and Their Mediterranean Profile. In: Nikolaos Chr. Stampolidis, Athanasia Kanta, Angeliki Giannikouri (eds.): Athanasia. The Earthly, the Celestial and the Underworld in the Mediterranean from the Late Bronze and the Early Iron Age. International Archaeological Conference, Rhodes 2009. Panepistemio Kretes, Eidikos Logariasmos, Heraklion 2012, pp. 179–190 ( online ).
  11. ↑ Compilation of dissenting opinions (“laconic”, “Ionic”, “Argive (?)”, “Corinthian”) by Costis Davaras: The statue from Astritsi. A contribution to the Daedal art on Kreat and to the beginnings of the Greek sculpture (= ancient art. Supplement 8). Francke, Bern 1972, p. 55; also "samisch" by Alan Cunningham Brookes: The Chronology and Development of Daedalic Sculpture. Dissertation University of Pennsylvania 1978; University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor [Mich.] 1982, pp. 109 f.
  12. ↑ On the Kore from Eleutherna see Nikolaos Christos Stampolidis: Eleutherna on Crete. An interim Report on the Geometric-Archaic Cemetery. In: The Annual of the British School at Athens . Volume 85, 1990, pp. 375-403, here p. 400; Nikolaos Chr. Stampolidis (ed.): Ελεύθερνα: Πόλη - Ακρόπολη - Νεκρόπολη . Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens 2004, pp. 235–236 No. 252.
  13. ↑ About Jean-Luc Martinez: La Dame d'Auxerre. Service culturel du musée du Louvre, Paris 2000; Didier Viviers: Review of Jean-Luc Martinez: La Dame d'Auxerre. In: Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire. Volume 79, 2001, pp. 326-327; Matteo D'Acunto: La fonction de la plus ancienne sculpture naxienne à Délos et la comparaison avec les productions crétoises dédaliques: sur les débuts de la sculpture monumentale en Grèce. In: Yannos Kourayos, Francis Prost (ed.): La sculpture des Cyclades à l'époque archaïque. Histoire des ateliers, rayonnement des styles. Actes du colloque international organisé par l'Éphorie des Antiquités préhistoriques et classiques des Cyclades et l'École française d'Athènes (7–9 September 1998) (= Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Supplément 48). Ecole Française d'Athènes / De Boccard, Athens / Paris 2008, pp. 133–182, here p. 164.
  14. ^ Jean-Luc Martinez: La Dame d'Auxerre. Service culturel du musée du Louvre, Paris 2000; Didier Viviers: Review of Jean-Luc Martinez: La Dame d'Auxerre. In: Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire. Volume 79, 2001, pp. 326-327.