Cypriot terracotta plank figure, £42,000 at Bonhams.
Cut from a single slab of red clay with an average height around 10in (25cm), these ‘idols’ assume a number of different forms, from single figures to figures cradling infants and figures with two or three heads.
Exactly why they were made and who they depict is the subject of conjecture. They may recall larger cult statues of stone or wood that were part of sanctuaries honouring an ancestor or fertility goddess.
Five-figure result
Among the best-performing lots in Bonhams’ (28/27/21/14.5% buyer’s premium) Antiquities sale on July 6 was a 9in (23cm) Cypriot terracotta plank figure from c.2000-1800BC. The patterns on the body most likely indicate a woven garment, overlaid with jewellery.
It is close in design and execution to another figure of this type in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, part of the fabled collection of Cypriot material assembled by the museum’s first director Luigi Palma di Cesnola (1832-1904).
Also part of its appeal was a half-a-century-old provenance to 1967 and a sale of the Collection de Mme S at the Drouot where it was photographed in the catalogue. It was purchased at the time by the collectors Jacques and Françoise Martinet and was one of three lots in this sale consigned by their family, now based in London.
The plank figure was estimated at £5000-7000 but at £42,000 became one of the most expensive of its type to come to auction.
