PRINCESS OF BACTRIANE Bactrian art late 3rd -... Lot 28

PRINCESS OF BACTRIANE Bactrian art late 3rd - early 2nd millennium B.C. Chlorite (or soapstone?), limestone H. 8,2 cm Complete statuette, excellent condition, right foot lost (originally inserted in the visible square hole), no traces of the arms preserved. In some places lost chips, chipping. Face slightly damaged. Provenance Former private collection, London (Great Britain) Former Bill and Linda Beierwaltes collection, Colorado (USA), 1980s-90s The body, legs and hair are made of chlorite, while the head and foot are made of white limestone. The neckline, which has a less smooth surface, was probably decorated with attachments (an ornament?) made of another material. The bottom is smooth without any carved details. These various elements were certainly assembled with a sticky material of which no trace remains. This statuette represents a woman sitting on the ground, wearing a large dress that envelops her completely. The bust is vertical, thin and rectangular in shape, the outline of the shoulders is rounded; the legs form a plateau; the pointed end, in the back left part, probably corresponds to a fold in the fabric behind the foot. The large oval hole between the shoulders was used to insert the neck and head of the statuette. The treatment of the face and the forms show excellent artistic skills. The details are rendered in a very elaborate but stylized manner: the eyes are almond-shaped, the mouth is a simple horizontal slit, the long nose is pointed, the ears - a little too large - are sculpted in the shape of a leaf. The hair forms a cap finely decorated with engraved circles that probably indicate curly hair, with two strands raised just above the temples. The woman is wrapped in a long garment, the texture of which is rendered by a series of lozenges in slight relief, arranged in regular rows and decorated with incised chevrons. This tunic, or at least its material, is reminiscent of kaunakes (the traditional Mesopotamian dresses of the Bronze Age); it is composed of long herringbone stripes that would have imitated a sheep or goat skin. The Bactrian statuettes wear kaunakes in a different manner than other Mesopotamian figures: here, the garment composed of pointed elements covers the entire body indistinctly. The only visible fabric border appears at the level of the chest, crossed in a sling by a straight line in very low relief (from the left shoulder to the right flank). These composite statuettes form a unique class of objects and belong specifically to the civilization of western Central Asia (they come from a very wide area from Margiana - modern Turkmenistan - to Pakistan). modern Turkmenistan - to Pakistan, with a large concentration in Bactria). They rarely measure more than 15 cm in height. They are characterized by their composite nature due to the use of various polychrome materials and the assembly of various removable elements. There are however important differences in the attitude of the figures among which this one is one of the most refined and most complete preserved today (fig. 1). The absence of attributes specific to the Bactrian figurines and the fact that few precise archaeological contexts are known (most often they come from necropolises, but a few examples have been unearthed in settlements), prevent us from defining their meaning with precision. If their relationship with the funerary world is certain, we do not know if it is a deity, an offering bearer, a protective figure, an intermediary between the faithful and the deity, etc. Moreover, the existence of several types of statuettes could indicate that several characters are represented under these features or that we are in the presence of different aspects of the same figure. Although no complete typological study of this material has yet been published, we can indicate the existence of some distinct categories such as those of standing statuettes, statuettes sitting on a visible stool or one hidden by the kaunakes, statuettes sitting on the ground with bent knees (as here) or statuettes with a schematic, flat, triangular body (without a bust). Their appearance appears to be a three-dimensional transposition of contemporary Elamite deities and queens, as depicted on the cylinder seals of Susa and other centers in Iran, or on the famous silver goblet of Fars (Marv Dasht, Tehran, Bastani Museum). The iconographic affinities with Mesopotamian and Iranian objects and their distribution help us to define the chronological framework: archaeologists agree that these figurines date from the end of the third millennium or the beginning of the second millennium BC.