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This exquisite piece of carved aquamarine dates
to the later enlightenment, when the European
social and intellectual elites were beginning to
embrace the enormous varieties of cultural
achievements beyond the shores of their own
continent. Based primarily upon martial and
economic growth overseas, the advent of the
European thalassocracies had led to enormous
wealth and prosperity for certain social strata,
and the reports, artefacts and stories that
returned with the explorers did much to fuel the
public imagination with a love for the exotic, and
the ancient. This was the period of the Grand
Tour, when young gentlemen were educated in
the classics before all else, where Roman and
Greek technologies and aesthetics were the
primary inspiration for engineers, architects,
artists and scientists throughout Europe.
Accounts of derring-do and adventure, which
were often embellished, led to generations of
books and paintings that sought to express the
Mysterious East, the Dark Continent of Africa,
the virtually untouched Eden of the Antipodes,
and, for our purposes, the Exotic Americas.
Identification of this piece’s intended inspiration
is done primarily on the physiognomy of the
face; however, regardless of specific inspiration,
this piece does evoke all that was de vogue in
the 18th century – the exotic, sensual, noble
savage of myth and legend, which was irresistible
at the time.
The piece represents a bare-breasted torso of a
woman from the apex of the head to just above
the groin; the fact that the hollow for the
inguinal ligament is represented on the right side
makes it possible that the piece was slightly
longer – and thus more explicit – at one stage,
but that it was viewed as being too risqué. It is
very expressionistic and reminiscent of the Art
Nouveau period in its long tresses that run the
full length of the back and down both sides of
the body, and the simplified, fluid morphology of
the body. The arms are not represented, perhaps
being concealed beneath her hair. The face is
Asiatic in general form, being comparatively flat
with a broad yet fine nose, almond eyes and
small, pursed lips under simplified, broad brows
on a flat frontal. The head is crowned with an
ornate ¾ circular hat without a brim, decorated
with diamond hatching around the perimeter and
small semicircular cross-hatching on the
superior aspect. In rear view, the whole of the
back is covered with small cross-hatching,
except for the hair which has been gathered to
each side. The manner in which it is represented
seems to rule out the possibility of it depicting
an East Asian, on the basis of facial morphology
(which, while shared to a certain extent between
the related East Asian and Native American
groups, can nonetheless be differentiated), the
lack of clothing (which seems to imply the ‘noble
savage’) and the decoration of the headwear.
The base is ground flat and the piece stands well.
This is a decorative, beautifully-executed piece
of Enlightenment sculpture.
- (OF.065)
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