Large Terracotta Pomegranate

Culture: Greek

Period: 5th-4th century B.C.

Material: Terracotta

Dimensions: 8 cm high

Price: 1 600 Euro

Ref: 2581

Provenance: From an old Swiss private collection. With a copy of an inventory list from the 1970s.

Condition: Intact

Description: Large, hollow terracotta votive in form of a pomegranate with beautifully preserved colors. The fruit is divided by four long and four short indentations into sectors of almost the same size. The upper part in red color. In the centre is a short inflorescence finely accentuated. At the bottom is a hole for attaching the fruit - possibly in a terracotta fruit basket, such as the ones found in Rhodes. See for a terracotta fruit basket from Rhodes in the British Museum with the registration number 1864,1007.11. The pomegranate could also have belonged to a terracotta statue of Persephone, whose fate was to spend half of the year in the underworld, after having nibbled on pomegranates seeds. In any event, depictions of pomegranates were popular as votive- and funerary offerings in the entire Greek art from the Classic to the Hellenistic period, as the fruit stands for life, fertility and rebirth.