Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
Lot 4*
A Mycenaean terracotta Psi idol
6 July 2023, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£2,000 - £3,000
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Siobhan Quin
Senior Specialist
Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
A Mycenaean terracotta Psi idol
Late Helladic III B, circa 1300-1200 B.C.
10.8cm high
Late Helladic III B, circa 1300-1200 B.C.
10.8cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
Private collection, Berlin, until 1938 or late 1940s, and then given as a gift to the grandmother (1899-1986) of the present owner; and thence by inheritance to the present owner (private collection, Switzerland).
This type of figure is named after the Greek letter that it resembles. The above lot is shown wearing a characteristic tall festooned polos and a long garment: the fine pleats around the bodice indicated with umber lines, the long robe decorated with two vertical lines at the front and one at the back. Cf. a similarly decorated Psi figure in the British Museum, acc. no. 1871,0512.5, and C. Blegen Prosymna, the Helladic settlement preceding the Argive Heraeum, Cambridge, 1937, p.148, plate 612, no. 609. See also also U. Jantzen (ed.), Tiryns: Forschngen und Berichte,, Band VI, Mainz, 1973, Gr VI 21;17;18;20.