Ancient Greece, Eros In Terracotta

Winged Eros Figure
Myrina, 3rd century BC
Terracotta with traces of slip  
Visible loss in the lower part  
Height of the figure: 11.4 cm  
Total height: 19.8 cm  

Provenance: Former Belgian collection  

This magnificent figure of Eros is depicted as a winged adolescent. He is draped in a himation, which he holds with his right hand while the left rests on his hip. Eros wears a vegetal crown, and his head is slightly turned to the left. His right arm holds a bouquet of flowers. Great attention has been given to the modeling of this figure, particularly in the elegance of the drapery, the detailed tooling of the hair strands, and the beautiful rendering of the wings.

This statuette belongs to the corpus of terracotta figures found at Myrina, a coastal city in Aeolis, located north of Smyrna. The scholarly debate continues as to whether these figurines were produced locally or imported from larger, more prominent cities.

Comparative examples:  
- Winged Eros figures:  
  - Louvre Myrina 33; Myr 66. 200-175 BC (1st quarter of the 2nd century BC)  
  - Louvre Myrina 1060. 100-75 BC (1st quarter of the 1st century BC)
- Pose and drapery:  
  - Louvre Myrina 1156. 300-100 BC (3rd century BC [?]; 2nd century BC [?])
- Wings:  
  - Louvre Myrina 1229. 200-100 BC (2nd century BC)
- Flower:  
  - Louvre CA 1571