The Lady of Auxerre and the value judgment of the Greek Archaic Art

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The Lady of Auxerre is a 75 cm high limestone statuette of a sculpted woman. The state of conservation is good except for the left half of the face and the arm, which was restored later on. There are red traces of painting on the breasts; She stands on a base 10 cm high in a very straight posture without movement.

She is dressed in a kind of shawl which covers shoulders – it can also be a flap of the tunic – and a broad belt, probably metallic. The breasts are well shaped over the high and slim waist and the formless skirt covered with incised scale or feather patterns defining areas of colors. The right hand is placed across across the breasts and the left one, which is long-fingered, is pressed to her side. She's wearing bracelets on her wrist. The feet are big and lumpy. The face is rather triangular with a light smile (characteristic of all the work from the same period), rounding in the chin, rather flat-topped and the forehead defined by a straight row of curls. The hair is dressed in vertical locks with knob terminals, but also with horizontally ranged crimps.

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[...] But in fact, the later judgment was influenced by the judgment of the Greek people themselves. Indeed some of art works were already valued during the Antiquity. Thus the contempt for this period existed already during the Antiquity by Greeks from the Classical and Hellenistic period. Then it reappeared during the Renaissance until the 20th century. At this time a taste for the primitive forms appeared. That tally with primitive style in the contemporary art. Thus the Lady of Auxerre was adored immediately and permits a new consideration for the archaic art (as well as the African art) and for the kouroi and korè rather than ephebos. [...]

[...] The institutional framework was created with the politic organization of the Greek cities. The population was growing rapidly and cities were looking overseas for new resources, new land for their citizens, in the “colonial” area of Italy and Sicily. Then through trade and travel the near east was quickening the appetites and skills of Greek craftsmen. The Greek religion appeared with big sanctuaries, worship organization. In Greece itself several major sanctuaries were established, some of local (as Athens, Samos) some of national importance (as Olympia, Delphi, Dodona), which provided a market for votives. [...]

[...] Indeed the sculpture was found outside of any context. Some think that this is the image of a goddess, considering the many terracotta figurines of Middle Eastern divinities (Astarte in particular) that highlight their sexual attributes. Others see this statue as a simple mortal, a votary representation, the servant of some fertility cult or perhaps the dedicator herself making a gesture of prayer. Indeed her right hand touching her breasts reminds an orant statue representing somebody praying. But this bearing is not common in the Greek statuary Archaic period According to this datation, the Lady of Auxerre belongs to the archaic period. [...]

[...] III- Real Renaissance of the Greek Art 1. Re-interpretation characteristic of Greece Mostly in Greece, the orientalizing reaches its peak between 700 and 650 BC while after this date the taste becomes more “Hellenist”. Little by little the oriental elements were assimilated and the shapes become more monumental. Thus the Daedalic style announced the developments of the 6th century and of an archaism really Greek. Moreover even if the Greece borrowed some techniques from the Egypt they developed their own meaning of representation and have their own objectives in their works. [...]

[...] The right hand is carried across the breasts and the left one long-fingered is pressed to her side. She's wearing bracelets in the wrist. The feet are big, lumpy. The face is rather triangular with a light smile (characteristic of all the work from the same period), rounding in the chin, rather flat-topped and the forehead defined by a straight row of curls. The hair is dressed in vertical locks with knob terminals, but also with horizontally ranged crimps Discovery Maxime Collignon, a Louvre curator, found the sculpture in a storage vault in the Museum of Auxerre, a city east of Paris, in 1907. [...]