264 - Votive head; Magna Graecia, Archaic period, 6th century B.C.

Votive head; Magna Graecia, Archaic period, 6th century B.C. Terracotta. Measurements: 11.5 cm high. Provenance: Family bequest from Ramon Martí Alsina and Ricard Martí Aguiló. An archaeological collection assembled beginning in the 1950s by successive generations of the family through acquisitions at European galleries and auction houses. This piece belonged to a private English collection. A half-length votive head in terracotta, depicting a face typical of the Archaic period, with a symbolic smile and almond-shaped eyes, thick braids, and a tall conical headdress. The Archaic period of Greek sculpture is characterized by a solemn style and a clear conceptual idealization, distinct from the balanced naturalism of the Classical period. It is also a period in which Greek sculpture drew on Asian and Egyptian influences, achieving an art of great formal complexity and aesthetic quality despite emerging from a culture that was practically aniconic. However, even in this period, the human figure is the central focus of Greek sculpture, although the aim is not to represent the human body but rather to embody an ideal—whether deities or concepts—in the material. Hence the hieratic representations—more divine than earthly—with simple modeling that avoids superfluous details, based on geometry and symbolic conventions, such as the type of smile we see in this terracotta.