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The enigmatic Lady of Elche or Lady of Elx (Dama de Elche in Spanish, Dama d'Elx in Valencian) is a polychrome stone bust that was discovered by chance in 1897 at L'Alcúdia, an archaeological site on a private estate about two kilometers south of Elche, Valencia, Spain. The Lady of Elche is generally believed to be a piece of Iberian sculpture from the 4th century B.C., though the artisanship suggests strong Hellenistic influences. [1]
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Sculpture
The originally polychromed bust is usually thought to represent a woman wearing a very complex headdress and big coils on each side of the face. A minority interpretation sees it representing a man[citation needed]. The aperture in the rear of the sculpture indicates it may have been used as a funerary urn.
While it is a bust, there are proposals that it was part of a seated statue like the Lady of Baza or a standing one like the Gran Dama Oferente from Cerro de los Santos (Montealegre del Castillo, Albacete). The three figures and the Biche of Balazote are exhibited in the same hall in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid.
History
The sculpture was found August 4, 1897, by a young worker, Manuel Campello Esclapez. This "popular" version of the story differs from the official report by Pere Ibarra (the local keeper of the records) which stated that it was Antonio Maciá who found the bust.
Pierre Paris, a French archaeological connoisseur, purchased the sculpture within a few weeks and shipped it to France, where it was shown at the Louvre Museum and hidden for safe-keeping during World War II.
The Vichy government negotiated with Franco's government its return to Spain in 1940 - 41, and June 27, 1941 the sculpture was placed in Museo del Prado (Madrid), then moved to the National Archaeological Museum, where it remains.
The discovery of the Lady of Elche initiated a popular interest in pre-Roman Iberian culture. She appeared on a 1948 Spanish one-peseta banknote and was mentioned in William Gaddis's The Recognitions (1955).
The sculpture was temporarily on display at the Museo Arqueológico y de Historia de Elche from May 18 to November 1 2006. Several appeals from this city (where it is now represented by a state of the art replica) have demanded its permanent return to this city.
Claim of forgery
In 1995, John F. Moffitt, an art historian, [2] published Art Forgery: The Case of the Lady of Elche, University Press of Florida, in which he contended that the statue was a forgery with similarities to Symbolist art of the Belle Époque. He put forth a speculation concerning the identity of the forger and commissioner, "a physician and resident surgeon in the town of Elche" who was "well informed about the current state of Iberian studies" and owned "the fertile archaeological site of La Alcúdia".
Experts in Spanish archaeology however, believe that the Lady of Elche is a genuine ancient Iberian work. Antonio Uriarte of the University of Madrid has stated, “Decade by decade, research has reinforced the coherence of the Lady within the corpus of Iberian sculpture. The Lady was found more than a century ago, and many of its features, not then understood, have been confirmed by subsequent finds. For example, the use of paint in Iberian sculpture was unknown when the Lady appeared.” [3] A CSIC study on the Lady of Elche's micropigmentation published in 2005 concluded that the trace pigments on the statue were consistent with ancient materials and that no modern pigments had been found. [4]
See also
References
- ^ Francisco Vives Boix, La Dama de Elche en el año 2000 : Análisis tecnológico y artístico [1].
- ^ Jack Moffitt, 1940-2008
- ^ "Is the Dama de Elche, one of the masterpieces of ancient Iberian art, really a fake?" at [2] See also R. Olmos and T. Tortosa, in Gocha R. Tsetskhladze (ed.), Ancient Greeks West and East, Leiden: Brill, 1999, brief summary here [3]
- ^ M. P. Luxán, J. L. Prada, F. Dorrego, 2005, "Dama de Elche: pigments, surface coating and stone of the sculpture", Materials and structures, 38(277), pp. 419-424. [4] See also [5]
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dama d'Elx |
- Earnest plea to return the Lady of Elx
- (Spanish) Fundació La Alcudia
- (Spanish) Reflections on the Lady of Elx
- (Spanish) Article at Enciclopedia Libre
- Facsimile of the Dama de Elche executed by Adam Lowe's studio Factum Arte in Madrid (2002-2005)
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