Terracotta Statuette of a Dancer in the Getty Villa, June 2016

Title: Statuette of a Dancer

Artist/Maker: Unknown

Culture: Greek (South Italian, Tarantine)

Place: Tarentum (Taras), South Italy (Place created)

Date: 400–200 B.C.

Medium: Terracotta with white slip (white lead) and polychromy (pink, light blue and turquoise, purple, violet, white)

Object Number: 96.AD.246

Dimensions: 23.7 × 10.4 × 8.8 cm (9 5/16 × 4 1/8 × 3 7/16 in.)

Credit Line: Gift of Barbara and Lawrence Fleischman

Object Type: Human figure

The female dancer’s left arm draws back her himation across her left hip while her right arm holds folds of the garment in front of her petit, elongated body. She extends her left leg forward; her lowered head turns toward her left. The long chiton flows to her feet while the himation wraps softly around her body, falling from her left hand in zigzag folds; the fluttering of fabric at her feet suggests the movement of the dance. The face has delicate features with large spherical earrings, and the melon-style hairdo features a tall, round bun and a wreath decorated with ivy and two small fruits. The dancer’s ivy wreath associates her with the realm of Dionysos. Dionysian imagery played a dominant role in the Tarentine funerary iconography of the fourth and third centuries B.C.

Text from: www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/103247/unknown-maker-statuette-of-a-dancer-greek-south-italian-tarantine-400-200-bc