Lady of Elx
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The famous but controversial Lady of Elx (Dama de Elche in Spanish, Dama d'Elx in Valencian/Catalan) is a polychrome stone bust that was revealed as found by chance in 1897 at L'Alcúdia, an archaeological site that was on a private estate about 2 km, south of Elx (Spanish Elche) (Alicante, Valencia, Spain). The Lady of Elx is generally believed to be an Iberian piece of the 4th century B.C. yet showing strong Hellenistic influences.
The 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. The aperture in the rear of the sculpture indicates it may have been used as a funerary urn.
[edit] History
The sculpture was found August 4, 1897, by a young worker, Manuel Campello i Esclapez. 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 its return to Franco's Spain in 1940 - 41, and June 27, 1941 the sculpture was placed in Museo del Prado (Madrid), then moved to National Archaeological Museum of Spain in Madrid, where it remains, in spite of appeals to return it to its home town permanently, where it is represented by a reproduction. However the sculpture is currently on display at the Museo Arqueológico y de Historia de Elche from May 18 to November 1 2006.
Lady of Elx 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).
Manuel Martinez Macia, an enthusiastic promoter of Lady of Elx, has founded the Orden de la Dama de Elche to return her to Elche.
The statues of the seated Lady of Baza and the Bicha de Balazote are exhibited in the same hall in the National Archaelogical Museum of Spain in Madrid.
[edit] References
- Francisco Vives Boix, La Dama de Elche en el año 2000 : Análisis tecnológico y artístico [1].
- John F. Moffitt, 1995, Art Forgery: The Case of the Lady of Elche, University of Florida Press. [2].
- 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. [3].
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