Very rare erotic statuette restored: will soon be on view at MArTA in Taranto

Restored, thanks to a project of study and research, cataloging and reorganization, as well as digitization of materials from the deposits of the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto, a very rare terracotta statuette in exquisite workmanship. It depicts a couple in the performance of erotic act. The “lovers” find probably dates back to the 1st century BC.

According to documentary indications, the erotic statuette has been in the Archaeological Museum of Taranto since April 10, 1884; it was found in the area of Santa Lucia, now partly the site of the Military Arsenal, and is linked to the history of the city and in particular to the topographical reconstruction of 19th-century Taranto.

In 1882, with two separate acts, and different financial endowment, the government of the time simultaneously enacted the law for the construction in Taranto of the Military Arsenal and the establishment of the Excavation Office, which according to the will of Giuseppe Fiorelli, at the time director general for antiquities and fine arts, was to oversee the excavation areas that characterized the birth of the future military industrial settlement.

“A new city that rose on what had once been the Greek and Roman necropolis and on the ancient port: in this sense the find is also an important historical document for the 19th-century history of Taranto, for the discovery by Luigi Viola and for the great urban planning project of those years,” commented museum director Eva Degl’Innocenti.

In those years the city’s archaeological heritage was recovered but also dispersed, not to mention the clandestine and illegal antiquities market. We do not know if it was censorship because of the depiction of an erotic scene that preserved this statuette from antiquities predators, but the project initiated by director Degl’Innocenti of preventive conservation, study, cataloging and digitization of the finds from the MArTA’s deposits also allows for more precise research on the urban and historical contextualization of the find in that area of great archaeological significance.

The erotic find underwent intervention by MArTA’s restoration laboratory, was hand-molded by an unknown artist and, in addition to the white engobe, has traces of color on the woman’s hair, on the pillows and in the bed frame housing the pair of lovers. It will soon be put on display for all to see.

“It is a find about which we still know very little,” added Eva Degl’Innocenti. “It could be a propitiatory scene, but funerary significance is not ruled out, given the location of the find. In fact, it could be related to a funerary context of the necropolis.”

Pictured is a detail of the erotic statuette. Ph.Credit MArTA

Very rare erotic statuette restored: will soon be on view at MArTA in Taranto

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