Standing figure

This small female figurine, in soft cream and white stone, stands with her left foot forwards and her hands folded over her belly. Her head is missing and so is her left foot. She is plump, with rounded arms, a horizontal crease across her belly and diagonal creases over each hip at the back; folds at the top of the thighs form a broad V-shape, but the pubic triangle is not otherwise indicated. Her thick, well-modelled legs with inverted crescent-shaped creases at the knees are divided by a straight-sided groove. The angle of the surviving foot shows that she would have been leaning forward slightly as she walked. It is this walking posture which is the most unusual feature of this little figure. Probably the closest parallel is provided by a small copper figure decorating the top of a pin found at Susa in southwestern Iran (Spycket, 1981: 34, fig.10). She also stands with hands folded and leans forward; creases mark her belly and crescents her knees, but her legs are close together.

Entry taken from Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection 3 volume catalogue, edited by Steven Hooper (Yale University Press, 1997).