Terracotta Statuette of a Sick Woman from Tarsus with Grotesque Features

Culture: Roman/Tarsos

Period: 2nd-3rd century A.D.

Material: Terracotta

Dimensions: 7.2 cm high

Price: 1 200 Euro

Ref: 3704

Provenance: Austrian private collection Prof. Josef Mairitsch (1938-1994). Acquried between 1960 and the early 1980s. Thence in a family estate. With an old collection note.

Condition: Intact

Description: Expressive, stylized terracotta figure of a seated female figure writhing in pain. The sick woman holds her left hand to her stomach, the right one supports her thigh. She bends forward to the right, her heavy round head anxiously hangs down. The face is mask-like grotesque, the round eyes wide open, the overwide mouth open and distorted with pain. Her hair is coiffed in strands straight backwards. She wears on each arm four bracelets. The interesting and rare figure belongs to the statuettes from Tarsus, which depict caricatures of illnesses and physical deformities. See: Hetty Goldman “Excavations at Gözlü Kule, Tarsus, Volume I: The Hellenistic and Roman Periods”, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1960, No. 273, fig. 234.