Toddler with bulla
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Toddler with bulla, Inv. T III-2 Hollow, open at the bottom. Front side from the mould, back side smoothly painted, with a large oval opening in the upper half. Toes worked out afterwards with the modelling wood. Yellowish brown (10 YR 6/4[1]) clay with fine dark inclusions. Minor traces of engobe, no paint residues. Provenance: Unknown. State of preservation: Intact except for bumps on the cap and toes. Dimensions: H: 21,1 cm; W: 6,4 cm; D: 4,1 cm. References: M. Recke – W. Wamser-Krasznai, Kultische Anatomie (Ingolstadt 2008) 71. 126 f. 129 cat.-no. 28 fig. 53; id., Kultische Anatomie. Begleitheft zur Ausstellung im Deutschen Medizinhistorischen Museum Ingolstadt, 13. März – 27. Juli 2008, 10 fig. 30. |
Description: The figurine is able to stand without support. The outline, conical from the shoulders, widens towards the feet. The arms are bent in front of the body and are included in the close-fitting smooth covering. The chest is uncovered, except for a bulla. The ribcage, sternum and musculature are indicated. Bare feet with the five indicated toes each peek out from under the hem of the robe. A short, thick neck leads to the head, which is covered by a pointed cap. The voluminous forehead skull is joined by a delicate lower face with a pronounced chin. A broad nose, somewhat saddled at the root, separates the widely spaced eyes. The flat eyeballs are framed by sculptured thin upper lids and thicker lower lids. A convex nasolabial fold sets the slightly open mouth off from the cheeks. The philtrum is visible above the curved upper lip overlapping the full lower lip. Smaller asymmetries of the eye and forehead area were presumably created during removal from the mould.
Commentary: In contrast to the infants, whose bandage wrappings are indicated plastically or by means of incising[2], the clothing on the Giessen statuette consists of a smooth fitting cover[3]. Identical specimens - all of them boys - with pointed cap and bulla are in the Archaeological Museum of Santa Maria di Capua Vetere[4]. The Mother Goddess, who was particularly venerated in ancient Capua, was not only offered larger-than-life tuff statues in the form of enthroned women with arms full of babies[5], but also terracotta statuettes of a smaller size, kourotrophoi[6] (child protectors) and babies in diapers[7]. With such votive offerings, the adorants sought to assure themselves of the goddess' special protection for their offspring. The bulla, an amulet[8] originating from Etruria, was also intended to protect the boys from evil influences. Its shape is usually circular. In the case of the Giessen wrap child, it apparently resembles a drop, but this may be faked by the lack of caesura between the disc and the eyelet. The associated chain is not recognisable here. Pointed caps as headgear for small children are a common attribute in Campania[9], but they also appear in other landscapes[10].
The face of the Giessen toddler spreads sideways to the outer corners of the eyes and the zygomatic arches entirely in the plane, but then abruptly turns back almost at right angles[11]. The mouth seems to smile softly; the cheeks, however, are unmoving and smooth; at the same time they appear soft and tensionless. The latter also applies to the thick lower eyelids. The contour and individual forms resemble those of swaddled children from Capua and Teanum, but equivalents can also be seen in specimens from Vulci[12]. The fine face of a boy statuette from Cales[13], on the other hand, is vividly enlivened by elevations and depressions in the area of the cheeks. In this it differs both from that of the Giessen child and from other Campanian boys' heads[14], which are distinguished by their precocious proportions, a high forehead and the powerful upper head dominating the lower face.
Of the identical parallels of the Giessen specimen, at least one is proven to come from the Fondo Patturelli, a sanctuary on the eastern city wall of Capua[15]. The find context spans four centuries, from the 4th-1st century BC, which diminishes its importance for external dating accordingly. The votive deposit of the Italic Temple of Paestum with several hundred swaddled children[16] also does not provide any specification beyond "Hellenistic period". Only a few features of the child's head, some of which have already been mentioned, are available for a more precise stylistic classification. The way the eye is made with the plastically applied lower eyelids, a rather technical detail, is found in some votive heads from Capua[17] that can be dated to the 2nd century BC, but they differ from the specimen T III-2 because of the long neck part, which is usual for head votives, but also because of the narrower and shorter shape of the faces. The votive head of another infant, also from Capua[18], is closer to the statuette in Giessen because of the similar proportions of the chin and cheek area.
Determination: Hellenistic, probably 2nd century BC[19], from Capua.
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[1] Slightly different from the contribution „Wickelkind mit spitzer Mütze und Bulla“ in: M. Recke – W. Wamser-Krasznai, Kultische Anatomie, Deutsches Medizinhistorisches Museum (Ingolstadt 2008) 126 f. 129 cat.-no. 28 fig. 53.
[2] With indicated incised windings: M. Bonghi Jovino, Terrecotte votive. Catalogo del Museo Provinciale Campano II Le Statue (Florenz 1971) 70 f. no. 51 f. pl. 37, 2. 3; with plastically indicated windings: S. Paglieri, Una stipe votiva vulcente, RIA 9, 1960, 87 f. figs. 21-23.
[3] There is no reference to windings, which would be indicated in colour.
[4] L. Melillo Faenza, Il santuario del fondo Patturelli, in: S. Cassani (ed.), Il Museo Archeologico dell‘ Antica Capua (Neapel 1995) 62 f.; R. Miller Ammerman, Children at Risk: Votive Terracottas and the Welfare of Infants at Paestum, in: A. Cohen – J. B. Rutter (eds.), Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy, Hesperia Suppl. 41, 2007, 145 fig. 7.17; Bonghi Jovino 1971, 70 f. no. 51 pl. 27, 1. 2; V. Kästner, Etrusker in Kampanien, in: id. (ed.), Etrusker in Berlin (Regensburg 2010) 113 fig. 10.4.
[5] T. Fischer-Hansen, Campania, South Italy and Sicily, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (Kopenhagen 1992) 166-169 no. 123 f.; R. Bianchi Bandinelli – A. Giuliano, Etrusker und Italiker vor der römischen Herrschaft (München 1974) 241-243 fig. 278 f.; Melillo Faenza ibid. 60 fig. 61; Kästner ibid. 110 f. fig. 10.2.
[6] I. Kriseleit – G. Zimmer, Bürgerwelten. Hellenistische Tonfiguren und Nachschöpfungen im 19. Jh. (Berlin 1994) 130-132 figs. 49-54; O. della Torre – S. Ciaghi (eds.) Terrecotte figurate da Capua (Neapel 1981) 23-31 pl. 8-10 and 11, 1. p. 60 f. pl. 25, 3.
[7] Near the village of Curti southeast of Capua, Kästner a. o. 113 fig. 10.4.
[8] H. Gabelmann, Römische Kinder in Toga praetexta, JdI 100, 1985, 506. 510-514; H. R. Goette, Die Bulla, BJB 186, 1986, 133-164, 135 f. 141. 143. 153; Paglieri ibid. 83-88 figs. 11. 12. 14. 16-18. 21-23.
[9] Capua: Bonghi Jovino ibid. 70 f. pls. 37, 1-4; Della Torre – Ciaghi ibid. 33 pl. 11, 5. The term "giovane" - youth - is misleading. The round belly and the thick thighs show that it is a small boy; Paestum: Miller Ammerman ibid. 143 figs. 7.12-14; Cumae: L. A. Scatozza Höricht, Le terrecotte figurate di Cuma del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (Rom 1987) 101 no. O I a 1 pl. 20.
[10] Outside Greater Greece from Attica and Boeotia: Children in the Cradle, M. Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age (New York 1961) 137 fig. 535; Winter 2, 1903, 271, 12; F. Marx, Dioskurenartige Gottheiten, AM 10, 1885, 81-91 pl. 4, 1; ibid. 271, 13; apparently naked, from Myrina: ibid. 271, 4.
[11] Cf. child with smooth cover, pointed cap and a necklace of amulets - bullae are also among them - from the Italic temple in Paestum., J. D. Baumbach, The Significance of Votive Offerings in Selected Hera Sanctuaries in the Peloponnese, Ionia and Western Grecce (Oxford 2004) 113 fig. 5.14.
[12] Capua: with pronounced technically induced asymmetries, Bonghi Jovino ibid. 38 f. pl. 37, 3. 4; Teanum: with the features of an adult, W. Johannowsky, Relazione preliminare sugli scavi di Teano, BdA 4/48, 1963, 146 f. fig. 12 h; Vulci: Paglieri ibid. 87 f. figs. 19. 20. 21 b.
[13] J. M. Blasquez, Terracotas del santuario de Calés (Calvi), Campania, Zephyrus 12, 1961, 39 f. no. 31 pl. 22; Bieber ibid. 138 fig. 546; G. M. A. Richter, Metropololitan Mus. Cat. Greek Sculptures (Oxford 1954) 92 f. no. 174 pl. 122.
[14] From Cales: Blasquez ibid. 39 no. 30 pl. 21; from Campania (?): S. Besques, Figurines et reliefs IV, 1, 1986, 69 Nr. D/E 3678 pl. 60 d; Galleria Campana B 271, R. Bianchi-Bandinelli, Il putto cortese del Museo di Leida, Critica d’arte 1, 1935, 91 f. note 8 fig. 12 pl. 63; M. Cristofani, I bronzi degli Etruschi (Novara 1985) 240 fig. 128.
[15] Melillo Faenza ibid. 62 f.
[16] Baumbach ibid. 113.
[17] M. Bonghi Jovino, Terrecotte votive. Catalogo del Museo Provinciale Campano I. Teste isolate e mezzeteste (Florenz 1965) 82 pl. 36, 4; p. 83 pl. 37, 4;
[18] Bonghi Jovino ibid. 135 pl. 66, 1.
[19] This assessment differs from the one expressed in 2008. The marble statue of the boy from Lilaia is not suitable as a comparative example in terms of style because of its 'chubby cheeks', which contrast with the soft, flabby cheeks of the Giessen child., s. Recke – Wamser-Krasznai ibid., 126 incl. note 56.