Idol of the Cyclades (Karlsruhe 75/49)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cycladic Idol (Karlsruhe 75/49)

The female idol with crossed arms (formerly Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, inventory number 75/49) is a marble sculpture of the Bronze Age Cycladic culture . The figure of the early Spedos type is dated from the 27th to the 24th centuries BC. Chr. (FK II) dated. The location is unknown. Pat Getz-Gentle attributed it to the Woodner sculptor. The figure from an illegal excavation was acquired by the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe in 1975 and returned to Greece on June 6, 2014 in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens .

description

The Cycladic idol is made of marble , which is believed to have come from the island of Naxos . It represents a female figure whose forms are sculptured. Due to the height of 88.8 cm and width of 17.8 cm, the figure is very slim. The ratio of shoulder width to body length is about 20%, the preferred ratio for other idols is around 25%. Due to the small profile of a maximum of 6 cm deep, the idol looks almost two-dimensional.

As with all typical Cycladic idols, the figure's arms are crossed over the chest, the left forearm is over the right. The fact that the forearms and hands are not only separated by a gap, but rather by a round shape with a small space in between, can be attributed to the extraordinary size of the figure. The legs are separated from each other by a deep gap, which only completely breaks through the material in the area of ​​the lower legs. Notches mark the delimitation of the thighs from the lower abdomen. A pubic triangle, which is common in other idols of this type, is not incised. The flat head protrudes towards the back and the oval face shape tapers slightly towards the top and is almost angular. The crooked, flat nose widens relatively sharply downwards. The three-dimensional ears are a specialty. The breasts are small and stand tall.

The naked female idol is very well preserved, only the left foot is missing. It was broken three times, at the top and bottom of the neck and at the knees. A broken part on the right side of the chin was added after the discovery. The signs of weathering are stronger on the left side of the body; the original, very finely smoothed surface has been preserved in places.

Like all Cycladic idols, this figure was originally painted in color . Traces are preserved in two forms. On the one hand, direct paint residues can be seen in the pubic area, which indicate a blue painting. On the other hand, a layer of paint that is no longer directly detectable protected individual areas from weathering. The formerly painted areas therefore now stand out as slight reliefs against the weathered surroundings. These indirect traces of the painting are referred to in the specialist literature as ghost (ghost). In this way, colored hair or headgear can be detected on the figure, the left eye with an eyebrow emerges in relief.

The idol is assigned to the type Early Spedos-B, the characteristics of which are the gap between the legs as a characteristic of early Spedos figures and the converging head shape with narrow shoulders for type B. The unusual proportions suggest that it was at the beginning this tradition arose. It is (as of 2014) the fifth largest among the fully preserved Cycladic idols. In addition, several large heads have been preserved, of which it is not certain whether they belonged to full-body figures.

In her doctoral thesis from 1972 and in several publications since then, Pat Getz-Preziosi (now Getz-Gentle) assigns a large number of idols to individual craftsmen or artists using a method that is controversial in the professional world. Because of its lower right ear, she identified this figure with the Woodner sculptor , whom she named after a specimen of almost the same size in a private collection. She assigns a total of three idols to this creator: the one from the Woodner collection (today in the Harmon collection), the Karlsruhe one and the idol with inventory number # 724 in the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. These three figures are all well above average, among the well-known idols they occupy places 2, 5 and 6 and as a decisive feature Getz-Gentle names, in addition to great similarities in arms and especially feet, the right ear, which is significantly lower in each case. Three-dimensional ears are very rare even among the large figures, only six large idols with ears are known, the difference in height only exists in these three figures. Based on the characteristics, Getz-Gentle assumes that the Karlsruhe idol was created by the three in the middle.

While the art dealer Koutoulakis gave the island of Naxos as the place of discovery , Thimme identified a presumed origin of the figure from the island of Amorgos with reference to stylistic elements of similar idols. On the other hand, Getz-Gentle believes it is quite possible that all three idols that she ascribed to the same artist came from the Kavos depot on the island of Keros and were torn apart by the robbery or the art trade and sold individually.

The meaning or use of the figure and all other Cycladic idols is unclear. As far as the origin is known, most of them come from grave finds, some were ritually deposited in depots . The figures are rare, only a fraction of the graves were idols. From the other grave goods there is no evidence that they were only given to men, women, people of high social status or any other definable group.

Provenance

The idol comes from a robbery excavation and was illegally smuggled from Greece , the location is unknown. The last private owner was the art dealer Nicolas Koutoulakis, known as the mastermind behind the trade in looted objects. Jürgen Thimme , the curator of the Badisches Landesmuseum at the time, initially received the figure on loan in January 1975 and acquired the figure a few months later in the run-up to the “Art of the Cyclades” exhibition, which was being prepared for 1976, for 300,000 Swiss francs .

Thimme published the idol in detail in 1975 in an article for the yearbook of the State Art Collections in Baden-Württemberg, in which he also presented the classification of the Cycladic idols by Colin Renfrew and Pat Getz-Gentle (then still Getz-Preziosi) in German for the first time . Due to its extraordinary size, the idol was an eye-catcher at the exhibition "Art of the Cyclades" , which in 1976 presented the Bronze Age Cycladic culture in its entirety and the relationships with neighboring cultural areas. The idol was then shown in the permanent exhibition of the Baden State Museum. In 2011, in the second major Cyclades exhibition in the German-speaking region, the Cyclades - Living Worlds of an Early Greek Culture, it again became a key part of the presentation. The idol was highlighted in both catalogs. The Greek antiquity authorities used both exhibitions to address the role of robbery excavations, the smuggling of cultural goods and the gray and illegal art trade and did not provide the Badisches Landesmuseum with any loans from state collections.

After the exhibition in 2011, negotiations at the highest level took place and on June 6, 2014, the Idol and the Cycladic handle shell (Karlsruhe 75/11) were declared by the State Secretary in the Baden-Württemberg Ministry for Science, Research and Art, Jürgen Walter and the Museum director of the Badisches Landesmuseum Harald Siebenmorgen handed over to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens in the presence of the Greek Minister of Culture Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos . The current market value of the idol is estimated to be in the seven-digit euro range.

literature

  • Jürgen Thimme: A monumental Cycladic idol in Karlsruhe . In: Yearbook of the State Art Collections in Baden-Württemberg , Volume 12 (1975), pp. 7–20
  • Jürgen Thimme (Hrsg.): Art and culture of the Cyclades islands in the 3rd millennium before Christ . CF Müller, Karlsruhe, 1976, ISBN 3-7880-9568-7 , pp. 259, 462; No. 151 .
  • Claus Hattler (Hrsg.): Cyclades - living worlds of an early Greek culture . Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-86312-016-0 . P. 263; No. 45
  • Pat Getz-Preziosi : Early Cycladic sculpture: an introduction . J. Paul Getty Museum, 1994, ISBN 0-89236-220-0 , pp. 64-66 .
  • Pat Getz-Gentle: Personal styles in early cycladic sculpture. University Of Wisconsin Press 2013, ISBN 978-029-917-204-6

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Getz-Preziosi 1994, p. 66
  2. ↑ a b Thimme 1975, p. 7
  3. ↑ Thimme 1976, p. 462
  4. ↑ Getz-Preziosi 1994, p. 64
  5. ↑ Getz-Gentle 2013, p. 77
  6. ↑ Getz-Gentle 2013, p. 38 f.
  7. ↑ John F. Cherry: Master and Artist? In: Hattler 2011, p. 216 f.
  8. ↑ Getz-Preziosi 1974, pp. 64-66
  9. ↑ Getz-Gentle 2013, p. 74 ff.
  10. ↑ Getz-Gentle 2013, p. 76
  11. ↑ a b Getz-Gentle 2013, p. 78
  12. ↑ Thimme 1975, p. 12
  13. ↑ "I hope that the 30 objects by Koutoulakis that I have planned for the exhibition in total will be in Karlsruhe by January 1975, including the 89 cm idol that we now want to acquire." Jürgen Thimme in a letter to Pat Getz-Gentle (then still Getz-Preziosi) of December 12, 1974. Quoted from: Peggy Sotirakopoulou: The Keros Hoard: Some Further Discussion. In: American Journal of Archeology , Volume 112, Issue 2 (April 2008), p. 279
  14. ↑ Südwestrundfunk: Criminal Archeology: Why almost the entire trade in ancient art is illegal . SWR2 Context, broadcast on June 6, 2014.
  15. ↑ Thimme 1975
  16. ↑ Harald Siebenmorgen: Foreword . In: Claus Hattler 2011, pages 6-9, 7.
  17. ↑ Press release: Return of looted grave art to the Greek Ministry of Science, Research and Art, Baden-Württemberg, June 6, 2014