Getty Museum

Statuette of a Woman with a Kithara

Date

225–175 B.C.

Medium

Terracotta with white slip and polychromy (pink, purple, red)

Culture

Greek (Sicilian)

Department

Sculpture

Institution

Getty Museum

Twisting her body into an ecstatic pose, a woman dances while playing a kithara (lyre). Terracotta statuettes like this were very popular in the Hellenistic period. Made in sites throughout the Greek world, the majority represent women. Dancers and female musicians with lyres and kitharas are particularly well represented in funerary deposits in Southern Italy and Sicily from the third or second centuries B.C., and this figure is stylistically reminiscent of examples from Centuripe. Comparable dancer and musician figurines are also well attested in the Hellenistic period at Priene, Myrina, Pergamon, and Cyrene, where they were produced up until the first century B.C. Statuettes of this type were formed in two-piece molds and mass-produced. A thin sheet of wet clay was pressed into each side of the mold. When the clay had dried, it was fired in a kiln and then the statuette was painted. On this figure, traces of polychromy survive over a white slip: pink for the base and clothing, purple for the hair and kithara, and red for the chiton and feet. The large hole in the back of the statuette is a vent, allowing air circulation so that it would not explode when fired.

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