The Tanagra figurines were a mold-cast type of Greek terracotta figurines produced from the later fourth century BC, primarily in the Boeotian town of Tanagra. They were coated with a liquid white slip before firing and were sometimes painted afterwards in naturalistic tints with watercolors, such as the famous "Dame en Bleu" ("Lady in Blue") at the Louvre. Scholars have wondered why a rural place like Tanagra produced such fine and rather "urban" style terracotta figures.^{[citation needed]}

Tanagra figures depict real women — and some men and boys — in everyday costume, with familiar accessories like hats, wreaths or fans. Some character pieces may have represented stock figures from the New Comedy of Menander and other writers. Others continued an earlier tradition of molded terracotta figures used as cult images or votive objects. Typically they are about 10 to 20 centimetres high.

The coraplasters, or sculptors of the models that provided the molds, delighted in revealing the body under the folds of a himation thrown round the shoulders like a cloak and covering the head, over a chiton, and the movements of such drapery in action.

Discovery and Excavation

The city of Tanagra was not necessarily a famous city such as Athens, Sparta or Crete. The city of Tanagra had slowly started rising into historians and archeologists attention during the early 19th century after a war was breaking out between the Turks and their allies the British and the French after a warning of a French invasion.Tanagra figures had not been much noted before the end of the 1860s, when ploughmen of Vratsi in Boeotia, Greece, began to uncover tombs ranging in date over many centuries. The main finds especially from the 4th and 3rd centuries BC were secured in 1874. Inside and outside the tombs of the Hellenistic period — 3rd to 1st centuries BC — were many small terracotta figures. Great quantities that were found in excavation sites at Tanagra identified the city as the source of these figures, which were also exported to distant markets. In addition, such figures were made in many other Mediterranean sites, including Alexandria, Tarentum in Magna Graecia, Centuripe in Sicily and Myrina in Mysia.

The figures appealed to 19th century middle-class ideals of realism, and "Tanagra figures" entered the visual repertory of Europeans. Jean-Léon Gérôme created a polychromatic sculpture depicting the spirit of Tanagra, and one French critic described the fashionable women portrayed in the statuettes as "the parisienne of the ancient world". Oscar Wilde, in his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), has Dorian liken his love, Sybil, to "the delicate grace of the Tanagra figurine that you have in your Studio, Basil." [1] Later, in his play An Ideal Husband (1895), Wilde introduces the character of Mabel Chiltern upon her entrance by stating (amongst further description), "she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so." [2]

Under the pressure of collectors' demands in the late 1800s, Tanagra terracottas began to be faked.

Initial excavations

Before the official excavation began, certain events began to bring attention to the city of Tanagra in the early 19th century. In 1806, Col. W.M visited the city of Tanagra and described the ruins that he had seen of the city in details.^[1] Christopher Wordsworth a Cambridge scholar visited the city in 1832. ^[1] H.M. Ulrichs a German scholar visited the site in 1837.^[1] During the year of 1852 the French General Staff published the first map that revealed the location of the first six graves that had been found in the ruins.^[1] In 1870 the city of Tanagra had an outbreak of grave robberies.^[1] During the year of 1873 many illegal permits had been confiscated from the people of the nearby villages that would allow the people to excavate the graves.^[1]

Grave Robberies

In the year of 1870 an outbreak of grave robberies had occurred in the ruins of the city of Tanagra.^[2] This outbreak had led to many of the graves being ruined due to the robbers not being careful while excavating the graves in order to steal the Tanagra figurines. Many of the graves had vases placed on the them but the majority of them ended up broken due to the robbers. Due to this outbreak it had led the Archeological Society of Athens to protect the site and begin excavation before anything else would be stolen or destroyed.^[1]^[3]

Excavation of 1874-1879

The Archeological Society of Athens had sent Panayotis Stamatakis, a senior official, to excavate the graves that had been left intact. Before he had begun the excavation, he had confiscated any antiquities that had been in the possession of the people from the nearby villages. These grave robberies had led to historians to excavate the city for further information on the culture of the city and its history and also to find as to why the figurines are mainly found in a grave and what they may have represented for the deceased. The excavations would be on and off because of the difficulty of the possibility of damaging any kind of art that may be present in the locations that had not been robbed. Most of the Tanagra figurines were discovered to be buried with the dead. From the excavations a large number of figurines had been found among the ruins, but no details of the exact number of figurines were released.^[1] Many of the figurines that had been found were missing or given away. ^[1] During the years of excavating the ruins of Tanagra there had been a problem concerning the people living near the area of excavating for themselves. While Stamatakis and the others sent from the Archeological Society of Athens would dig during the day, the people nearby the ruins would dig during the night due to the lack of guards. ^[1]

Figurines

Purpose

The creation of the Tanagra figurines would serve a purpose among the Greeks in the city of Tanagra as religious statues. The purpose of creation of the Tanagra figurines would have the figures in different type of poses that would correspond to the deceased lifestyle.^[1] The Tanagra figurines that were buried in the graves led to a theory that the small figures were the person's possessions.^[1] The Tanagra figurines were believed by historians to be comfort to the dead, sending them to the next world in peace because they would be taking something from their old life with them. It is speculated that though it was normal to place the figurines in the grave of the dead, it was not something that was essential to be placed in the grave, such as a vase.^[4]^[1]

Subject Matter

(Tanagra figurine) A young man seated on a rock. Back roughly modelled; square vent. Red on hair and boots; orange-pink on rock; pink on skin; rose-madder with blue border on cloak. British Museum 1874.

These figurines would be representing an everyday life of a Greek person such as a woman taking care of her children, or a child playing, as well as men and young children sitting and women playing games with other women or by themselves^[5].

Seated Women and girls
Women leaning against a column
Crouching woman
Pickaback
Men and young men
Eros
Aphrodite
Grotesques

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Higgins Reynolds (1985). Tanagra and the Figurines. Princeton University Press.
^ Thompson, Dorothy (1966) " The origin of Tanagras". American Journal of Archeology.70 (1): 51-63
^ Thompson, Dorothy (1966) " The origin of Tanagras". American Journal of Archeology.70 (1): 51-63
^ Bell, Malcolm III (2014) Morgatina Studies: The Terracotas. Princeton University Press
^ Dillon, Sheila (2010). The Female Portrait Statue in the Greek World. Cambridge University Press.

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