Figure schématique de type violon

Schematic violon-shaped figure, attributed to the Metropolitan Museum Master

Larger than average, severe, bold and sharp in its outline contours, this female figure is an unusually well preserved and beautifully conceived and executed example of the violin-shaped type. The image is unparalleled in having voluptuous breasts rising in high relief from the flat chest. The depiction of breasts of any sort on otherwise characteristic violin-shaped figures is unknown. (The few atypical violin-shaped figures displaying breasts also show arms.) The double incised V on the chest—its apex created by the space between the breasts—is unusual but not unique. A figure with similar shape from Kimolos displays a double rounded neck (and an old restoration on its cephalic stem). An unpublished example in the Archaeological Museum on Paros with similar outline contours has a triple V incised, as well as eight horizontal abdominal grooves on the mid-section and a large pubic triangle on the lower torso (similarly to the Kimolos figure, it was mended). The absence of any markings on the mid and lower sections of the Barbier-Mueller piece is also noteworthy, in view of the unusually detailed upper torso. Characteristically the figure is thin in profile and without any markings on the flat rear.

It could be purely coincidental, but the fact that both the Plastiras figure (Inv. 202-70) and the violin-shaped figure are almost exactly the same height and that they were part of the same old collection makes me wonder if they were not also found in the same cemetery or even in the same grave. And that raises the question whether the same remarkable carver, the Metropolitan Museum Master, might also have made the violin-shaped figure. It does bear a certain resemblance to the large violin-shaped idol associated with the largest of the sculptor’s Plastiras figures. This figurine bears six abdominal grooves, starting just below the elbows. The body of the Barbier-Mueller idol still keeps the basic form of the flat marble slab the sculptor started from. The body cut outs, remarkable for their sobriety, evoke elbows and folded arms, hips and a wasp waist, while the rest of the outline remains untouched. The main challenge the sculptor had to face of course was to free the fine cephalic stem without breaking it [1].

Published in: J.-L. Zimmermann 1993, p. 77 and 141 (n°20).

[1] For additional parallels to the basic form of the figure, see, for example: Getz-Gentle 2006, n°4; Thimme 1977, n°43. For the Kimolos piece see Zervos 1957, fig. 56b.