Terracotta Statuette of an Actor in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2012

Title: Terracotta statuette of an actor

Period: Late Classical

Date: late 5th–early 4th century BCE

Culture: Greek, Attic

Medium: Terracotta

Dimensions: H. 4 1/8 in. (10.5 cm)

Classification: Terracottas

Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1913

Object Number: 13.225.25


Fourteen of these figures are said to have been found together in a burial in Attica. They are among the earliest known statuettes of actors and are superbly executed and preserved. Originally they were brightly painted. They document the beginning of standardized characters and masks, indicating the popularity not of a specific figure but of types—the old man, the slave, the courtesan, etc.—that appeared repeatedly in different plays. By the mid-fourth century B.C., Attic examples or local copies were known throughout the Greek world, from Southern Russia to Spain.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/248775