ANTIQUE FRENCH BRONZE OF A GIRL PLAYING BONES BY COLLAS
Circa 1860
Height: 8 inches / 20.3 cm
Width: 8½ inches /21.5 cm
Depth: 5½ inches / 14 cm
Stock number: PB7503/0121
Price: £850
A 19th century French bronze of a girl playing bones by Achille Collas (French 1795-1859), after the antique discovered at Pompeii. A good quality cast with rich rubbed brown patina on an oval base.
She is seated on the ground wearing a chiton, a form of clothing worn by the Ancient Greeks, which has slipped to expose her right shoulder and breast. It is a copy after the antique statue discovered in 1832 which is on display in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. There is a similar sculpture in the British Museum.
This composition of a girl playing knucklebones had symbolic significance in Ancient Greece. The girl is placing herself in the hands of chance, a reference to fate and the gods that preside over it. The young girl destined to be a wife is placing herself in the hands of Aphrodite, a divinity who became more and more important from the 4th century BC onward. Indeed, the “Aphrodite throw,” where each knucklebone fell on a different side, was the best throw. Similarly, a girl waiting to be married was sometimes named philastragale, which means “loving knucklebones.”
