232 - Small head depicting an African man; Hellenistic Greece, circa 330 B.C.

Small head depicting an African man; Hellenistic Greece, circa 330 B.C. Terracotta. Measurements: 5 cm high Provenance: Family bequest of Ramon Martí Alsina and Ricard Martí Aguiló. An archaeological collection assembled beginning in the 1950s by successive generations of the family through purchases at European galleries and auction houses. It previously belonged to the former Roger Khawman Collection, Paris. Hellenistic sculpture represents the final period in the evolution of Greek sculpture and developed during the period spanning the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. and the Roman conquest of Egypt, between 30 and 31 B.C. It is characterized by an eclectic, secular, and historicist style that builds upon the legacy of classical sculpture from the preceding period, to which new Eastern influences were added. It also marked a refinement in the depiction of human anatomy and emotional expressiveness, as well as a fundamental shift in aesthetics, moving away from the ideal to represent the individual, transitioning from the generic to the specific.