French - Phyrne - Walters 71368 - Left Three Quarter
Summary
Phyrne stands on an ivory socle mounted on a wooden base. Her elaborately braided coiffure is bound with a ribbon and a strand of graduated pearls. Turning her head, she shields her face with her left forearm. Phyrne ambiguously conteracts this gesture of modesty by raising her right arm over her head to display her voluptuous torso to best advantage.
In the 19th century, the famous courtesan was popularized by Jean-Léon Gérôme's masterpiece of 1861, "Phyrne before the Tribunal," illustrating the titillating moment when the orator Hypereides won his client's acquittal by baring her bosom to the appreciative Athenian judges. Having served as the model for Praxiteles and Apelles as well, the subject of Phyrne offered artists an occasion for representing an idealized nude. Gérôme's figure frequently served as the prototype for representations of Phrne in bronze, ivory, and silver. The anonymous Walters ivory differs from Gèrôme's composition in the position of the figure's arms.
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