Head of a Composite Statuette
Unknown · c. 2100-1900 BC
Only three and a half centimetres high, this pale limestone head once belonged to a composite statuette. The base of the neck and the top of the chest were cut to slot into a body carved from dark serpentine, and the top and back of the skull were deliberately removed to receive a separate hairpiece, probably in another material. The eyes are drawn as simple incised lines, giving the face a quiet, inward look.
The head comes from Bactria, the region of northern Afghanistan and neighbouring Central Asia, and dates to around twenty one hundred to nineteen hundred BC. The Oxus civilisation of that period produced a series of composite female figures known as Bactrian princesses, with white stone faces and bodies of dark green stone carved to look like layered woollen robes. Their meaning is uncertain; they may represent goddesses or high-ranking women. The Louvre received this head as a gift in nineteen seventy seven. Even in isolation it shows the contrast of pale and dark stone that gave these figures their power.
Did You Know? The head was made in pieces on purpose, so that a white face, a dark robe and a separate coiffure could be fitted together like a puzzle.
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