Statuette of Apollo

200–100 B.C.

Medium

Terracotta with white slip and polychromy (purple, pink, white, light blue)

Dimensions

21.8 × 10.9 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-241483

Apollo, the Greek god of music, stands holding his kithara, a stringed harp-like instrument. This terracotta statuette portrays the god wearing a cloak that drapes down his back from the left shoulder, and then wraps around the hips to leaving the torso bare. Apollo's long hair reaches down his back with a single lock falling forward over each shoulder, and he wears a radiate crown. He rests his left foot on a rocky projection in order to provide support for his kithara. The added colors applied over a white slip is well preserved: purple (hair and base), pink (skin), white (himation, rocky base, and part of the kithara), and light blue (hem of the himation, leaves of the wreath, and lower part of the kithara). Canosa in South Italy was a major production center of terracotta vases and statuettes in the Hellenistic period. Local religious beliefs created a huge demand for the terracotta figurines that were either offered as gifts to the gods in sanctuaries or buried with the dead.