Tanagra figurine
They were coated with a liquid white slip before firing and were sometimes painted afterward in naturalistic tints with watercolors, such as the famous "Dame en Bleu" ("Lady in Blue") at the Louvre.
Such figures were made in many other Mediterranean sites, including Alexandria, Tarentum in Magna Graecia, Centuripe in Sicily and Myrina in Mysia.
Although not portraits, Tanagra figures depict real women—and some men and boys—in elegant but everyday costume, with familiar accessories like hats, wreaths or fans.
Given Greek burial customs, they were placed as grave goods in the tombs of their owners,[2] very likely without any sense that they would serve the deceased in the afterlife, in the way that is common in the funerary art of ancient Egypt or China.
The coraplasters, or sculptors of the models that provided the molds, delighted in revealing the body under the folds of a himation thrown round the shoulders like a cloak and covering the head, over a chiton, and the movements of such drapery in action.
Tanagra figures had not been much noted before the end of the 1860s, when ploughmen of Vratsi in Boeotia, Greece, began to uncover tombs ranging in date over many centuries.
Great quantities found in excavation sites at Tanagra identified the city as the source of these figures, which were also exported to distant markets.
Jean-Léon Gérôme created a polychromatic sculpture depicting the spirit of Tanagra, and one French critic described the fashionable women portrayed in the statuettes as "the parisienne of the ancient world".
The piece in Boston now called Polyphemos reclining and holding a drinking bowl combines religion and satire, as it was found at a sanctuary that held an annual festival where dramatic versions of mythological stories were performed.
Later, in his play An Ideal Husband (1895), Wilde introduces the character of Mabel Chiltern upon her entrance by stating (amongst further description), "she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so.
