Make Music – XI: Lyra Player
Terracotta statuette depicting a lyra player seated on a stool.
The statuette belongs to “genre subjects” in fashion in Boeotia during the 6th century BC. Numerous Boeotian tombs from the archaic period have yielded up delightful figurines illustrating scenes from daily life. The subjects represented range from cooking and teaching to riding and animal scenes, some of them highly picturesque. These “genre scenes”, which were mainly designed for funerary purposes, were particularly widespread in Boeotia by 550 BC, before disappearing under that form around 480–470. The faces, which by that date were exclusively cast from molds and were used for male and female figures alike, show little variation, whereas the bodies and accessories, which were modeled directly in clay and applied to a base, show great diversity. The liveliness of these figures will have been further enhanced by their originally having been painted in bright matt colors.
Boeotian terracotta statuette
H. 10.0 cm; L. 7.4 cm; W. 4.5 cm
C. 525–475 BC.
From Thebes
Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities
Paris, Musée du Louvre – Inv CA 685
Make Music – XI: Lyra Player
Terracotta statuette depicting a lyra player seated on a stool.
The statuette belongs to “genre subjects” in fashion in Boeotia during the 6th century BC. Numerous Boeotian tombs from the archaic period have yielded up delightful figurines illustrating scenes from daily life. The subjects represented range from cooking and teaching to riding and animal scenes, some of them highly picturesque. These “genre scenes”, which were mainly designed for funerary purposes, were particularly widespread in Boeotia by 550 BC, before disappearing under that form around 480–470. The faces, which by that date were exclusively cast from molds and were used for male and female figures alike, show little variation, whereas the bodies and accessories, which were modeled directly in clay and applied to a base, show great diversity. The liveliness of these figures will have been further enhanced by their originally having been painted in bright matt colors.
Boeotian terracotta statuette
H. 10.0 cm; L. 7.4 cm; W. 4.5 cm
C. 525–475 BC.
From Thebes
Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities
Paris, Musée du Louvre – Inv CA 685