A Companion to Greek Art (Smith/A Companion to Greek Art) || Terracottas

A Companion to Greek Art, First Edition. Edited by Tyler Jo Smith and Dimitris Plantzos.

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

11.1 Introduction

Modeling figures or small reliefs in clay is a very widespread phenomenon,

one whose development might seem, with hindsight, to have had a certain

inevitability in any society where clay was in common use for the production

of pottery vessels. It is easy to imagine how in such circumstances the process

of terracotta production could begin. A few pieces of clay might be trimmed

off the body of a vessel, or be left over from rolling out a rim or handle:

pressed together, these could be modeled by the potter or an assistant into

some independent form, perhaps for the amusement of children or other

onlookers. Left on one side in the work area, some of the models might dry

and harden in the sun; others could be fired as testers in the pottery kilns.

Gradually, as they were perceived to have a use and even a market, clay

figurines would acquire an independent value and existence and their

production would become a specialized industry in its own right. This type

of scenario is likely to have been played out in many cultures at many times:

so that in itself it may seem quite unremarkable for the Greeks to have made

terracotta figures. But much less predictable are the developments in the

types of terracottas that were produced, whether confined to particular

regions or more widespread. The organization of the industry and the status

of its practitioners, the so-called ‘coroplasts’, at various times and places is

also of interest, as are the ways in which the uses or destinations of terracot-

tas changed over time. These are some of the topics with which we shall be

concerned here. But to appreciate terracottas as a class of object properly, it

seems desirable to start with a brief discussion of the technology of Greek

terracotta production, from its Geometric origins to its Hellenistic perfection.

CHAPTER 11

Terracottas

Lucilla Burn

Smith_c11.indd 221Smith_c11.indd 221 2/25/2012 10:21:47 AM2/25/2012 10:21:47 AM

222 Forms, Times, and Places

11.2 Technology

Geometric-period terracottas are closely allied in technological terms with the

contemporary pottery. From around 950 BC onwards in Athens, for example,

figures of people, horses, and other animals were made from the same clay as

the vases and decorated, with similar stripes and linear patterns, in the same

clay slip, applied before firing. Many Geometric figures were handmade and

therefore solid, like the handsome, stylized horses that line up on the lids of

pyxides or enjoy an independent existence as figurines; other handmade ani-

mals and human figures, even chariot groups, are also found. But occasionally

in the earlier Geometric period, and more commonly in the later, figures that

were made on the potter’s wheel, or figures that combine hollow, wheel-made

elements with parts that are solid and made by hand, are also found, such as

the fine models of mules carrying amphorae, similar to one found in the

Kerameikos cemetery at Athens (Figure 11.1). This use of the potters’s pri-

mary tool, the wheel, demonstrates the close connection between terracotta

and vase production at this time and suggests there was probably little, if any,

distinction between the practitioners of the two arts.

In the Early Archaic period, when Boeotia appears to have become a leader

in the production of figurines, many continued to be made by hand. This is

true of the distinctive plank-like seated and standing goddess figurines, made

from thin slabs of clay; it is also the case with the numerous horsemen, which

bear a strong resemblance to their Geometric predecessors, and the series of

lively genre figures and groups, from barbers to bakers and cheese-grinders.

However, the use of molds, introduced into Greece from Cyprus, North

Syria, or Phoenicia soon after about 700 BC, soon became widespread and was

hugely influential in terms of terracotta technology and stylistic and techno-

logical development. Some Early Archaic figurines combined molded with

wheel-made elements, like the series of mourning women made in Boeotia

with molded heads and wheel-made, neatly-waisted bodies (Jeammet 2003:

86–87). But the advantages of molds soon allowed terracotta makers to move

away from the wheel. Molds enabled them to produce hollow items that were

not necessarily cylindrical. And by making possible the production of large

numbers of replicas of a single original, they introduced the feasibility of mass

production.

The first step in producing a mold-made figurine is to make, by hand, a

solid figurine, sometimes known as an archetype or patrix. From this, any

number of sets of molds can be taken (for a straightforward account of this

process, see Uhlenbrock 1990: 15–21; for its consequences, see Nicholls

1952). The molds must be fired in a kiln until hard, and then, to make a

figure, lined with a thin layer of clay. When dried to a leather-hard state, this


Terracottas 223

layer is removed from the mold and fired. In the Classical period, most figures

were made from a single mold, in which could be formed, in one piece, the

front of a figure, including its head. The back of the figure would then simply

be closed with a thin, flat slab of clay, trimmed to fit its contours. The bottom

was often left open, but sometimes figures were provided with a flat, plaque-like

base. If this was the case, a vent – rectangular, circular, or square – would be

cut in the back to allow air to escape during firing. Without a vent there was

a very real risk that as the air expanded as it grew hotter, the figure would

explode.

Only fairly simple figures could be made with a single, frontal mold. They

could be either seated or standing, but their heads needed to be strictly frontal,

their legs pressed together, and their arms held rigidly at their sides – projecting

limbs were not possible (see for example the East Greek seated goddess of

Figure 11.2). Later in the Classical period, heads started to be molded

separately, the neck elongated with a long, tenon-like stalk that could be

Figure 11.1 Terracotta model. Mule carrying amphorae. c. 780–720 BC (London,

British Museum GR.1921.11–29.2. © The Trustees of the British Museum).



pushed through the upper body before firing. Later still, as terracottas had to

keep pace with the increasingly sophisticated poses achieved in other media,

the number of molds needed to make a single figure expanded greatly.

A typical standing female figure of the Hellenistic period, for example, would

be made from one principal front mold, and one back mold, often less fully

worked than the front: the front and back of the head would also be made

separately in two more molds. Any projecting limbs, extra pieces of drapery,

or wings would require additional molds. The individually molded pieces

would be left to harden in their separate molds, then carefully removed at the

leather-hard stage and joined together with wet clay. At this point, any

necessary repairs to the figure might be made; if the mold were rather worn

or broken in some area then details of drapery or hair might be ‘retouched’ or

‘touched up’. The joins between the separately molded elements needed to be

smoothed over on the outside and reinforced, if necessary, on the inside, with

more damp or liquid clay. It has been suggested that this is an additional

function of the air vents, and a reason why they are often very large: cut when

the figurine was taken from the mold, they would have allowed the coroplast

Figure 11.2 Terracotta figurine. Goddess. c. 520–500 BC (London, British

Museum 68. © The Trustees of the British Museum).


Terracottas 225

to get a finger inside to smooth down the ‘seams’ and also to secure the head

on its long tenon (Muller 1996: 38–39). The use of component molds to build

up a figure had the advantage of allowing the coroplast to create subtly differ-

ent-looking figures with minimum effort, simply by changing the head, or the

angle at which it was attached to the body, or by varying the accessories – fans,

hats, or wreaths.

Figurines were most probably fired in kilns similar to those used for pottery

(see Chapter 13). However, because they were not designed to hold liquids,

they did not need to be as hard as most pots and so did not need to be fired

for as long. We have seen that once molds entered the picture, terracotta

production was more free to evolve separately from that of pottery. However,

their common use of the same raw material – clay – and their common need

for kilns and fuel to fire them may well have led to potters and coroplasts

sharing premises or working side by side. In the Archaic period, methods of

terracotta decoration remained close to those of vase-painting – brownish-black

clay slip, along with the same reds and purples used on pottery, was applied

before firing. Later too, at certain times and in some areas, including both 5th

and 4th c. Athens and 3rd c. Crete, decorative molded terracotta elements

could be added to enhance wheel-made vases. It has indeed been argued that

the development of the ‘Tanagra’ style was a consequence of the production

of draped, female figures that were applied to the fronts of the large

loutrophoroi found in the Sanctuary of the Nymph on the south slope of the

Acropolis (Jeammet 2003: 125). But in terms of their decoration, from the

Classical period onwards, terracotta figurines moved in a quite separate

direction from vases, with the development of decorative techniques that

more closely resemble those of larger-scale statues. Most of the decoration

was carried out after firing: this is clear because the white coating which forms

the ‘ground’ for the colored decoration of most figures is usually composed

of kaolinite, a mineral that would be destroyed in the firing process (Burn and

Higgins 2001: 307–312). Over the white ground, a variety of colors – minerals

like ochre, hematite, or Egyptian blue, along with plant or vegetable colors

such as rose madder – could be applied to delineate features, hair, or areas of

drapery. Gilding was also used to highlight elements of drapery such as the

border of a cloak, or for bracelets, necklaces, or earrings. It is noticeable that

with very few exceptions, little trouble was taken to decorate the backs. Often

they are not even coated in the white slip and they are rarely colored. This

provides, perhaps, an intriguing clue as to their use – were they invariably laid

on their backs or propped against a wall?

Because coroplasts, molds, and archetypes could all travel quite easily

around the Greek world, it often happens that figurines very similar or even

identical in type were made in places that were geographically and politically

distant from one another. Sometimes it is possible to show how certain types



of figure moved from one production center to another, occasionally adapted

to suit local tastes: painstaking study has revealed, for example, how versions

of one type of Aphrodite figure, originating in Athens, were made in both

Cyrenaica and Cyprus (Jeammet 2003: 138–141). Identifying the clay from

which a figurine is made is the best method of determining its production

place. In terms of scientific tests, neutron activation analysis, which can identify

the trace elements that make up the unique ‘fingerprint’ of a clay, is the most

reliable method (Burn and Higgins 2001: 293–306). But close visual

inspection of the clay can often reveal certain clues. The actual color of the

clay is not usually a very helpful guide as this tends to vary a great deal

according to the firing conditions, and often even different parts of the same

figurine can be very different in color. But the texture of the clay and its

inclusions can sometimes be very helpful. The figurines of Athens, for example,

like Athenian vases, are generally made from fine clay that contains very few

inclusions of any kind. Boeotian clay, on the other hand, is slightly coarser,

with noticeable flecks of glittering silver particles (sometimes known as mica).

Asia Minor clays are still more micaceous, with flecks of gold as well as silver,

while most distinctive of all are the clays of Cyrenaica, which are often very

coarse and typically contain tiny fossilized sea creatures, like small pieces of

shell. The production places of some of the high-quality terracottas found in

huge numbers in the Greek cities of South Italy and Sicily (Magna Graecia)

may also be identified by the appearance of their clay: at Morgantina in central

Sicily, for example, distinctive clay types are one way by which locally produced

terracottas can be distinguished from those imported from Syracuse or other

production centers (Bell 1981: 116–118).

11.3 Types and Functions of Terracotta Figures

Terracottas could fulfill several different functions. These might vary according

to period and place, and also, to some extent, their types. At all periods it is

hard to avoid the rather obvious idea that surely some terracotta figures might

have been children’s toys. This is especially true of the numerous small and

appealing little figures of birds and animals that are found in graves and

sanctuaries; but that even some of the later figures of children or even older

females might have had this function may perhaps be suggested by a few

Athenian tombstones on which a young girl stands holding such a figure (e.g.

Uhlenbrock 1990: 44, fig. 36), as though it is an emblem of the childhood

that she is leaving behind in death. The function and destination of terracotta

figures are likely to be related, and it seems clear that in most periods the

principal find spots are tombs and sanctuaries, with houses entering the picture

significantly in the Hellenistic period. But in each of these contexts they may


Terracottas 227

have fulfilled a variety of roles, and the same type of figure, whether it is of a

goddess or a little girl, might be found in all three.

Is there any development in use and consequently in function or significance

over time? In the Geometric period, when terracottas were closely related to

pottery and most of those that we know about were found in graves, they are

likely to have played a similar role to the pots, emphasizing the status of the

dead person and his or her family. In the Archaic period, goddess figurines,

along with a variety of small animals, horsemen, and small genre figures,

predominated. A typical East Greek example of a goddess (Figure 11.2) shows

the figure seated frontally. The tall headdresses of the goddess figurines

suggest they may be images of Demeter or Persephone, goddesses associated

with the Underworld. These figures have been found in both sanctuaries and

tombs; in sanctuaries they would be offered as gifts to placate the local gods,

while in tombs they may have served to protect the dead person on his or her

journey to the Underworld. In the Classical period, most terracottas continued

to be predominantly sacred in both subject and function. Large numbers of

them have been found, for example, in the sanctuaries of Athens and Attica at

this time. Goddesses predominate, but they are joined by images of Dionysos

and, especially in the later 5th and 4th c. BC, by figures of women and youths,

who sometimes hold offerings such as flowers or cockerels and who are best

interpreted as worshippers, visitors to a sanctuary. Although there are naturally

stylistic developments, these basic types of figure, and their use in sanctuaries,

continue through the 4th c. and into the Hellenistic period. At certain

sanctuaries or in connection with certain deities, particular types of figure

seem to have become especially popular, being related to the presiding god or

goddess. At many small sanctuaries and shrines in southern Italy, for example,

images of the banqueting Dionysos were extremely popular, a reflection of his

important role there as an Underworld deity. Demeter sanctuaries throughout

the Greek world, on the other hand, are noted for their large quantities of

hydrophoroi, or women carrying water jars on their heads (Burn and Higgins

2001: 175, 180). Their image evokes an episode in the myth of the goddess

Demeter, who, when searching for her lost daughter Persephone, was

welcomed at Eleusis by the kindly daughters of Keleos when they came with

their water jars to draw water from the well and found her resting there

(Figure 11.3). It is likely that women carried water jars in Demeter sanctuary

rituals, and that by dedicating these figurines they left behind surrogates of

themselves, worshippers who would keep their place in the sanctuary and

continue to honor the goddess after they themselves, the dedicators, had

returned home. Female figures carrying piglets, another popular offering to

the Underworld deities, are also commonly found at sanctuaries of Demeter

and Persephone. At other sanctuaries, female figures wearing a particular or

unusual style of dress, such as a peplos at a time when the chiton was in more



general wear, as at the Thesmophorion on Thasos (Muller 1996), may

be found. This trend may reflect the actual dress worn by the participants in a

festival, or else it may be the effect of conservatism in terms of the offering

tradition at a particular sanctuary. At Morgantina in central Sicily, the presence

of the sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone promoted the production of a

wide range of high-quality terracotta figures from the Archaic to the Hellenistic

periods. Here, as Bell has shown, the preferred types of terracotta, especially

the numerous figures that show Persephone as a bride, suggest that the

emphasis of the cult was very much on Persephone and her sacred marriage to

Hades, God of the Underworld (Bell 1981: esp. 99–103).

In the Hellenistic period, while sanctuary dedications of terracottas

continued, they also became very popular offerings for tombs. This may be

reflected in what looks like an increasing secularization in terms of subject or

type. The prime examples of this tendency are the ‘Tanagra’ figures, so-called

from the city of Tanagra in Boeotia, central Greece, where thousands were

discovered in largely illicit excavations in the 1870s and 1880s (Higgins

1996; Jeammet 2003). The ‘Tanagra’ style and type almost certainly

Figure 11.3 Terracotta figurine. Woman carrying water jar. c. 200 BC (London,

British Museum 2518. © The Trustees of the British Museum).


Terracottas 229

originated in Athens in around 380 BC, perhaps in connection with ‘plastic’

vase developments, and from here it spread to Tanagra and elsewhere in the

Greek world, but the name ‘Tanagra’ has stuck. Although figures of

the goddess Aphrodite and her son Eros are part of the Tanagra repertoire,

the most common type of Tanagra is the elegantly draped, standing female

figure who lacks any of the attributes that would mark her out as a goddess

or a worshipper (Figure 11.4). There are also young men and children, both

boys and girls, and a variety of ‘genre’ figures, especially actors and old

nursemaids. Because of the circumstances in which these figures came to

light, we have virtually no evidence for the age or sex of the occupants of the

graves in which they were found. Research into the better-documented

contemporary graves at Taranto in southern Italy, however, where similar

‘Tanagra’-style figures have been found, suggests that terracotta figures were

generally thought most suitable for the graves of women and children, and

were rarely found in those of adult males (Graepler 1997). Their function in

the tomb is uncertain, but perhaps one way they might have been considered

Figure 11.4 Terracotta ‘Tanagra’ figurine. Woman. c. 250–200 BC (Cambridge,

Fitzwilliam Museum GR66.1937. University of Cambridge/The Bridgeman Art

Library).



is as substitutes for the female family members who played a principal role in

visiting and caring for the family tombs.

While there are generally fewer terracotta deities in the Hellenistic period

than before, Aphrodite’s popularity in other media is paralleled in terracotta,

and there is also a new fashion for winged figures – Eros, personification of

Love, and Nike, winged Victory. The largest and finest of the Eros and Nike

figures have been found at Myrina, a city in Asia Minor, not far from Smyrna,

which, like Tanagra, is principally remarkable for the terracottas found in its

cemeteries (Uhlenbrock 1990: 73–76). The Myrina workshops appear to have

been at their most active from around 250 BC onwards, continuing into the

Roman period. Many of the Myrina figures are highly accomplished in terms

of both design and technique and the Nikai in particular are truly magnificent

creations (Figure 11.5). They really do appear to fly, their tall, beautifully

feathered wings extended, one leg pushing free of the drapery, which then

presses back in windswept folds against the other leg and body. It is not clear

what significance these winged figures would have had in the tombs where

they are principally found – they should symbolize triumph or victory, so

Figure 11.5 Terracotta figurine. Winged Victory (Nike). c. 180 BC (Boston,

Museum of Fine Arts 01.7690. Museum purchase/The Bridgeman Art Library).


Terracottas 231

perhaps they represent the escape of the dead person’s spirit from the confines

of the tomb. It is also worth noting that figures like these, with their projecting

limbs and wings, are extremely fragile: they are difficult to accommodate in

modern museum displays or storage but were surely just as difficult to transport

or handle in antiquity. It seems very likely that most were made and purchased

specifically for placing in the grave.

Other new types of terracotta figure also become popular in the course of

the Hellenistic period and were finely developed at Myrina. These include the

actor figures, representing the characters of both Middle and New Comedy.

The earlier figures are very like those that appear on South Italian vases of the

4th c. BC: they have short, padded costumes, an exaggeratedly large phallus,

and a mask (Figure 19.4). The later figures are also masked but generally are

fairly normal in terms of their proportions and dress; many of them can be

identified as stock characters of the comedies of such playwrights as Menander,

such as the Procurer or the Blond Young Man. The boundary between the

actor figures, with their caricature-like masks, and the so-called ‘grotesques’ is

often blurred, perhaps because, it is believed, in real life one way for dwarfs

and people with various physical disabilities to make a living was as dancers,

mummers, or general entertainers. At all events, terracotta figures with realistic

or exaggerated deformities, such as hunchbacks or twisted limbs and torsos,

do become popular in the Hellenistic period, and a good proportion of them

seem to be dancing or miming. Like the Nikai, it is not obvious why any of

these figures were considered appropriate offerings or furnishings for the

graves where most of them have been found. In the Athenian Kerameikos

cemetery it seems that actor figures were sometimes placed in children’s

graves: it has been suggested that a child’s first visit to the theater was a

significant rite of passage, and that actor figures could have been buried with

those who did not live long enough to experience it directly, but this seems

very speculative. As for the ‘grotesques’, were they perhaps considered to be

apotropaic – good-luck charms that would protect their purchasers – or those

whose graves they ended up in – from suffering a similar fate? Or were they,

rather, cheerful reminders of company and entertainment? Was the idea that

the noise and jollity that these figures represented might ward off the evil

spirits from the tomb (Uhlenbrock 1990: 159)?

The final context in which terracottas are found increasingly in the

Hellenistic period is in private houses (Rumscheid 2006). Here they seem to

have formed a cheap alternative to statuettes in more expensive materials such

as marble or bronze. It is not always simple to determine how the figures were

used or understood in a domestic context. At Priene, for example, a house

near the theater where many masks and actor figures were excavated could be

that of a theater-lover, but has more plausibly been interpreted as having had

some cult function connected with Dionysos. Other figurines of gods or



goddesses may have been used to furnish domestic shrines. But there is some

evidence to suggest that some figures, especially the larger-scale examples,

might have had a more purely decorative domestic function, placed on small

tables or in niches against the walls. This sort of decorative use seems to have

continued into the Roman period, with several examples of terracotta figures

of various scales used in the gardens and courtyards of Pompeii and other

Vesuvian cities.

11.4 Terracottas, Bronzes, and Other Sculpture

We know all too little about the coroplasts themselves and the organization of

the terracotta industry. The term ‘coroplast’ occurs very rarely in Greek

literature and when it does, it is usually a term of disparagement: Isocrates, for

example, asks rhetorically whether anyone would imagine comparing Pheidias

to a coroplast (Antid. 2). No individual is mentioned by name. But we do

know some coroplasts’ names because they appear on some of the terracotta

figures made and found at Myrina (Kassab 1988). These names generally

appear on the backs of the figures: some were incised into the molds, so that

they appear in slightly raised relief on the figures. Most of them are found on

figures that are dated stylistically to the 1st c. BC and AD and, though a few

Roman names appear, most of them are Greek – Diphilos, Hieron, Sodamos,

and Menophilos. We do not know whether the names are actually those of

individual coroplasts, or rather the owners of workshops.

We have briefly noted the relationship between terracottas and pottery,

terracotta makers and potters, and suggested that the developmental paths of

the two types of artifact were able to diverge with the introduction of molds

for figurines. But Greek cities and villages were too small for craftsmen to

work in isolation from each other, and it seems most likely that the practitioners

of various crafts mutually exchanged and absorbed useful information and

technologies. The use of archetypes and molds, for example, was something

that the terracotta makers had in common with bronze casters, and it seems

highly likely that many figurine types that we know solely or principally in

terracotta were also made in bronze: the maker of an archetype could have

sold his product or allowed it to be used by either type of craftsman. The

Baker Dancer, for example, a rare surviving, high-quality Hellenistic bronze

figure now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Pollitt 1986: fig. 292), finds

several parallels in terracotta. The point is probably not that one material is

imitating another but rather that bronze casters and coroplasts equally were

responding to the same demand, moving in the same environment, and quite

probably pooling their skills and their resources (Barr-Sharrar 1990). At times

there are also observable links between sculpture in marble and terracotta


Terracottas 233

figures. One group of 2nd c. BC terracottas from Myrina, for example, seems to

echo the sculptural style of contemporary Pergamon (Uhlenbrock 1990: 75);

and some of the fragmentary terracottas from Knidos and Halikarnassos now

in the British Museum have strong links with contemporary large-scale sculp-

ture from Caria and the Dodecanese – not just in their poses and drapery

styles but also in facial expressions and hairstyles (Burn 1997). Several

‘Tanagra’ types echo or are echoed by large-scale marble statues, such as the

so-called ‘Sophoclean’ type (e.g. Jeammet 2003: 198–203). Clearly the basic

technology of working in marble and clay is decidedly different, with the

marble workers cutting away the surface to reveal the form beneath and the

workers in clay building up their figures layer by layer. However, the polychromy

of marble sculpture seems likely to have followed much the same method and

used the same materials as that of terracottas. And it is perfectly possible that

not just bronze casters, but even sculptors like Pheidias, whom we now

celebrate for their surviving work in marble, actually carried out much of their

original work in terracotta. There are references to sculptors working at

Epidauros producing ‘typoi’, which may be models in clay, and it seems highly

likely that for, say, a pedimental composition, a sculptor would produce a set

of clay models to develop and plan the relative positions and groupings of the

figures (Boardman 2006). It certainly seems plausible, too, that the prolifera-

tion and replication of large-scale copies of statue types in the Hellenistic

period was facilitated by the export and migration across the Greek world of

small-scale terracotta figures or molds taken from them.

Though terracotta figures were certainly cheap and ubiquitous in antiquity,

they are still well worth studying today. Some, like the Myrina victories, are

small-scale masterpieces of sculpture; all are a tangible link with the past, and

even when we cannot be certain of their significance, they serve to bring us

closer to those who made and used them.

FURTHER READING

The most comprehensive general introduction to the subject in English remains

Higgins (1967), which covers the subject chronologically from about 7000 BC to AD

100, in terms of technology, typology, and regional development. It is, however,

considerably out of date, and badly needs replacing. Full of valuable insights, especially

for the Hellenistic period, and including much more recent bibliography and finds,

are two excellent books produced to accompany exhibitions of terracotta figurines:

Uhlenbrock (1990) and Jeammet (2003). Uhlenbrock includes insightful essays by a

number of scholars, who make invaluable contributions to our understanding of

regional styles and workshop practices in the Hellenistic period. It also underlines the

pioneering work undertaken by Dorothy Burr Thompson in terms of outlining the

Athenian origins of the Tanagra style. Jeammet is the most beautiful terracotta book



yet produced, elegantly designed with magnificent, full-color images of numerous

figures; the author focuses on the products of Tanagra from the Archaic period

onwards, and as well as demonstrating the stylistic and typological development at

Tanagra, provides illuminating case studies on the diffusion of the Tanagra style. Like

Higgins (1986), Jeanmet also introduces the story of the discovery and reception of

Tanagra figures in the 1870s and 1880s. The bibliography is extremely complete and

suggests numerous avenues to pursue.

Otherwise, the most useful material on this subject is to be found in museum

catalogues and excavation reports. Of the former, W. Schürmann’s (1989) Katalog

der antiken Terrakotten im Badischen Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe is an excellent

example. Of the latter, Merker (2000), with her masterful analysis of the terracotta

figures from the sanctuary of Demeter and Corinth, not only organizes the material

clearly and concisely but is also a mine of information on everything from clays to

technology, typology, and function. And Rumscheid (2006), besides presenting the

figurines from Priene, offers invaluable discussions of context and superbly referenced

summaries of terracotta finds in domestic contexts from Ephesos to Pompeii. On

Sicily, see Bell (1981), detailing the finds from Morgantina; and for Boeotian in

various time periods, see Szabo (1994).


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A Companion to Greek Art (Smith/A Companion to Greek Art) || Terracottas