Figurine of a Naked Woman Cupping Her Breasts
Unknown · Middle Elamite period, c. 1500-1100 BC
A small terracotta woman stands naked, cupping her breasts in both hands. She wears a diadem, a two-strand necklace, bracelets on each wrist and rings around her ankles, and the maker left her face and jewellery crisp enough to read from a short distance. Only seventeen centimetres tall, she was pressed into a mould, so she is flat at the back and finely detailed at the front, and traces of a pale slip still coat the clay.
Figurines of this type were produced in large numbers at Susa during the Middle Elamite period, roughly the fifteenth to the twelfth century BC, and they turn up in houses, temples and graves. Their meaning is debated: they may have been offerings for fertility or protection, or simple images of a goddess kept at home. This example was excavated in the Royal City quarter of Susa and joined the Louvre under the partage arrangement that shared finds between France and Iran. Compare her with the neighbouring figurines, where the same pose repeats but the jewellery changes from one mould to the next.
Did You Know? Because the mould did all the work, a potter could turn out dozens of identical women like this in an afternoon.
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