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Archaic Head in the Allard Pierson Museum a Problem of Style, Material and Authenticity

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Archaic Head in the Allard Pierson Museum a Problem of Style, Material and Authenticity BaBesch 72 (1997) Archaic Head in the Allard Pierson Museum A Problem of Style, Material and Authenticity J.M. Hemelrijk Part of a statue or a high relief that comparable kinds of material occur all over Allard Pierson Museum Inv. no. 9240 Europe, and therefore its provenance cannot yet be discovered. From a private collection in Paris (Monserin, Anto- For the appearance of this miliolide-containing pel- novitch), acquired in 1975 as one of the gifts that let packstone see Figs. 1c-e1. Thomas Roep explains marked the re-opening of the museum in the new Fig. 1c as follows: A = Miliolides (0.8 mm); B = building (formerly the National Bank of the Nether- calcined pellets formed from excrements of worms; lands). Donated by the Prins Bernhard Foundation. C = very tiny bits of quartz, called ‘silt’. Provenance unknown, but probably from Greece. It contains countless inclusions consisting in speci- mens of the gastropode Cerithium (Fig. 1e), snail Limestone; max. H. 30.5 cm, max. W. 20.3 cm, shells which may be more than 2 cm long; some of D. 16.1 cm; estimated height from chin to crown of these have caused smaller and larger holes where head (now lost) 30-31 cm; distance of exterior cor- they have fallen out. Larger holes – apart from ners of eyes 13.3 cm, diameter of eye 4.7 cm, height numerous such holes in the breaks – are found of eye 2.1 cm, width of mouth 5.7 cm, distance above the left eye, in the curl next to the middle chin-headband 24.8 cm; diam. forehead curls 3 cm; of the forehead, in the nose, a deep, narrow one width of hairband 2.4 cm. under the chin, on top of the head etc. See especially the impression embedded in the surface between the second and third curl and the head band above MATERIAL the left temple (Fig. 1d, a cast of which is shown in Fig. 1e)2. Porous limestone, with many holes in its surface caused by inclusions that have fallen out. The pre- served finished surface warm cream-coloured: this PRESERVATION colour is probably due to some modern treatment – perhaps with wax or a similar substance –, since Broken off above the root of the neck; greater part the same warm colour is seen where the surface is of the surface of this break roughly flattened with a damaged, such as on the tip of the chin. In the breaks drove chisel (Fig. 1n; ca. 1.3 cm wide; six long the colour of the stone is varied and pale-greyish: grooves still visible). Top of head broken off, its see further Preservation. The limestone is described horizontal upper surface also roughly flattened with by Th.B. Roep and J. Smit of the Geological Institute this drove (Fig. 1m); back of head broken off ver- of the University of Amsterdam as ‘creme, ceri- tically (Fig. 1i; unworked, yet flattish); rough thium bearing calcarenite (probably medium to breaks on right (Fig. 1g) and left side, carrying off thickly bedded); it is miliolide bearing, quartz silty, the first spiral curl above left temple (Fig. 1h), most pellet packstone’. of the skull and the hair, except part of a lock We had suggested that Central or Northern Greece falling along the neck on either side (Fig. 1a-b); might conceivably be its source, to which Prof Nor- also lost are both ears except the lobe and tragus man Herz of the Center of Archeological Sciences, of the right ear (Fig. 1f-g). Nose badly damaged, University of Georgia, replied (letter 5-5-’86): “The chin and lips slightly. Remaining surface rather geological map shows an extensive area of Neogene well-preserved. sediments from Larissa South to Volos and Almiros. Of course, using a map can only identify the dif- ferent possibilities”. In a letter of 1-1-’94 Prof. 1 See M.J. Cock Escher in MVVAPM 29, 1983, 14-5, figs. 2-4. M. Dermitzakis of the Geological section of the 2 A deep narrow hole in the top of the head, 2. 5 cm behind the headband, straight above the nose, has been explained as a trace University of Athens writes: “The type and colour of a meniscus, but the spiral marks inside it show that it was of the limestone reminds me of the limestone found caused by a shell and, besides, its position is not perpendicular in East Central Greece (Sterea)”. However, it appears but slanting. 65 Fig. 1a. Front view. Photographs of Fig. 1 are by M. Bootsman (except Fig. 1c-e and 1l-n) 66 Fig. 1b. Front view in strong lighting Fig. 1d. Detail showing holes from shells Fig. 1c. Thin-section of limestone Fig. 1e. Cast of impression of shell, see 1d 67 Fig. 1f. Three-quarter view TECHNIQUE cut contours of the spiral curls and along the tresses falling along the neck) the surface is visibly less The stone is very porous; the entire statue must once porous, ‘closed’, as it were, by some such material have been stuccoed and painted, but only very (not visible on photographs); this can hardly be slight, and perhaps doubtful, traces of stucco are understood except as rudimentary traces of ancient now to be seen. This is important for our judgement stucco. of the authenticity of the piece: in places where the There is no sign of the use of a drill, not even in the surface was protected from corrosion (in the sharply nostrils and ear. The flat chisel must have been used 68 Fig. 1g. Right-hand profile Fig. 1h. Left-hand profile with restraint, witness the fine edges of the eyes, the eyes are carved in the frontal plane. For the slope of delicate cleft between the lips, the sharp separation the forehead see Figs. 1g-h. of the curls from the forehead etc. A cutting- The general shape of the head is as follows. Seen compass was used to outline the irises and pupils, frontally (Figs. 1a-b), the contours of the face, from Fig. 1a and d (the central point is just visible). the temples downwards to the chin, form the lower part of a narrowish oval, enclosed above by the full curve of a hairband and a string of spiral curls. Note DESCRIPTION that in this facial oval there is no (or, at least, very little) indication of the angles of the jaws (anguli This head is of an uncompromising monumentality mandibulae): the contour is, as it were, ‘jaw-less’, and larger than lifesize: about 5/4. It cannot be ‘abstract’ (but in profile view the angulus mandi- made out whether it formed part of a very deeply bulae of the right jaw is indicated; Figs. 1f-g). carved high relief or of a freestanding piece of Above the fillet the skull seems to have had the nor- sculpture (but perhaps the former, as we shall see, mal shape, if we may judge from the course of the may seem more likely). At present it is mounted in wavy hair tresses (Fig. 1h). too vertical a position; the neck (in profile) should When seen in strict profile (compare Figs. 1g-h, lean forward a little. which were taken from a viewpoint just a little too The most striking feature is the flatness of the piece far to the rear), it is clear that the artist did not dare which comes out especially when seen from below to penetrate deep enough into the stone: he carved (Fig. 1l): the front and sides of the face preserve the the eyes too much in the foreground and then cut block-shape which guided the sculptor during his the stone away below them, at either side of the work: the transitions between them are abrupt; the nose. Consequently, the nose (now broken) seems 69 Fig. 1j. Reconstruction as a sphinx (drawing Jaap Morel) Fig. 1i. Reverse Fig. 1k. Reconstruction of profile Fig. 1l. View from below 70 Fig. 1m. Surface on top of head Fig. 1n. Traces of drove on underside of neck pushed a little into the face. In other words, the area The eyes are rather large and bulging, protruding between eyes and chin is not sufficiently developed even beyond the cheekbones (Figs. 1d,g-h,l)! They in space and unnaturally flat, the cheekbones are are looking straight ahead (not downwards); the high up and shallow (though sufficiently rounded, eyeballs are strongly rounded, also shaping the Fig. 1l), the mouth is protruding in this area and the upper eyelid, which results in a marked depression chin, for which there was plenty of room in the between the upper eyelids and the brows. If the face stone, sticks out under it. was meant to be seen frontally, as seems likely, the As for the original profile-shape of the nose it can lack of depth in the modelling must have remained just be made out from Fig. 1g-h that its outline unnoticed. formed an angle, though only a very slight one, with The shape of the eyes is a pointed oval, the lower the line of the forehead, protruding a little, but not lids less curving than the upper ones. Curiously, the as much, for example, as that of the Piraeus kouros outer corners seem to be at a slightly lower level (Fig. 7b) but more like Acr. 654 (Fig. 2b) and the than the inner ones and the edges of the upper eye- Tenea kouros (Fig. 4, whose nose is exceedingly lids continue beyond the outer corners of the eyes pointed and straight below), but perhaps less than for about 1 cm in very shallow relief as a slanting that of the Milani kouros (Fig.
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