Votive figure; Tanagra, Hellenistic period, 3rd century BC.

Votive figure; Tanagra, Hellenistic period, 3rd century BC.
Terracotta.
Provenance: Georges Savès collection.
Measurements: 15,5 cm (height).

Female figure in terracotta, belonging to the Tanagra tradition and dated to the 3rd century B.C. It represents a standing woman of graceful proportions and hieratic posture, delicately modeled. She wears a himation that partially covers her head and falls in soft folds over a chiton.
The Tanagra culture, also called Tanagraois, was a city of Boeotia, near the border with Attica, in a territory called Pemandride, which produced the best wine of Boeotia. Perched high up, with its temples separated from the houses, it had an important necropolis. Of particular note are some human figures made in terracotta and called "tanagrines", fashionable in the ancient Greek world from the late fourth century BC to the late third century BC, found mainly in Hellenistic tombs, but also in the temples, and found in large quantities from the last third of the nineteenth century approximately.

This piece comes from the collection of Georges Savès (1908-1985), a French numismatist and collector with a deep vocation for archaeological study. Heir to a family tradition of collecting, he devoted himself fully to historical and numismatic research since the 1950s, especially on Toulouse and Gallic coins. Throughout his life, he assembled an eclectic collection of archaeological, ethnographic and artistic pieces, enriched in 1966 with the acquisition of part of the Roger Bédiat collection. Author of specialized studies, his legacy remains a reference in the academic and patrimonial fields.