Infant's head. Greece Attica, IV century BC. Marble. Provenance: Private collection A. A., Vienna, Austria. Measures: 20 cm (height).

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Archaeology, Session I

By Setdart Auction House

Dec 22, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-12-22 08:30:00 2021-12-22 08:30:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Archaeology, Session I https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/setdart-auction-house/archaeology-session-i-8050
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• Lot Description
  Infant's head. Greece Attica, IV century BC. Marble. Provenance: Private collection A. A., Vienna, Austria. Measures: 20 cm (height). Head belonging to a complete and worked round sculpture of a girl. A clearly childish face, with bulging cheeks and delicate features, is decorated only by a ribbon that gathers the curly hair as wavy locks. The most direct parallel of this piece, both for its size and its peculiar style, are the sculptures of girls found in the Temple of Artemis of Brauron, today preserved in its archaeological museum. Brauron was one of the twelve cities that the mythical king Cecrope established in Attica and that were later united by Theseus in the city of Athens. According to legend, Iphigenia left in the sanctuary of Brauron, where she came to serve as priestess, the wooden statue of Artemis that she had brought from Thaurica. According to a local tradition, it was in Brauron that Iphigenia was to be sacrificed but before that she was replaced by a bear or a bull by Artemis. It was a city famous for its sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Artemis, founded in the ninth or eighth century BC, excavations revealed places of worship as a cavern; the tomb of Iphigenia, with an aspect of a grotto, next to it a small shrine, a heroon where Iphigenia was worshiped by receiving as an offering the clothes of women who died during childbirth. Other buildings of the sanctuary were a temple, a parthenon, a gymnasium, an amphipoleion (dwelling of the priests), a palestra, stables and an important sacred spring. Later, in the 3rd century B.C., the Erasinos river covered it completely, allowing its preservation, since it was located at its mouth. One of the most interesting discoveries of the cult of Artemis Brauronia is that it was dedicated to women. The maiden goddess Artemis protected newborns and young women during childbirth, the most important time of their lives, as mortality rates from childbirth were quite high for both babies and mothers. The largest building in the sanctuary was the "stoa of the Arktoi" or "bear room", it had a total of nine rooms and each room housed eleven wooden beds and seven tables. It has been suggested that the function was as a dormitory for the girls or perhaps as a refectory where collective banquets were held. Numerous statues of girls and boys have been found in front of the rooms, dating from the second half of the fourth century BC, indicating that at this time Artemis appears mainly as a goddess of work and protector of children. Some details of the rites and festivities that were celebrated in the sanctuary are known from some literary sources and also from representations found on pottery as well as on the preserved marble relief friezes. The girls between 5 and 10 years old spent some time in the sanctuary of Brauron, they exercised in the dance, in the pedestrian race and in the art of weaving, in order to be better prepared for their adult life, thus, besides a religious center it was a place of education.
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