Kallos

Finest quality Hellenistic head bead, 3rd - 1st century BC, drilled and sculpted in vivid banded agate.  The head is wearing the youthful hetaira mask of Greek comedy.

The delicate carving carefully depicts the features of a wooden mask - wide face, pronounced chin and brow, large almond-shaped eyes for the wearer to see through.  The sensuous lips and elegant nose depict youthful female beauty.  There is a fillet band simply marked at the top of the brow and a hairnet (kekryphalos) on the reverse - indicators of the hetairidion hōraion according to Julius Pollux, the 2nd century Greek scholar.

Pollux catalogued 44 distinct theatrical masks.  The bead corresponds to Pollux Type 39. Hōraion carries the sense of being in one's youthful bloom or prime.  Hetairidion means "little companion" or "little courtesan", referring to the highly educated class of independent female companions in antiquity.

She occupied a boundary that respectable Athenian women normally did not: she could talk freely and debate with men, move through male social space, be an object of desire, negotiate relationships and money, and exercise a degree of agency unavailable to the conventional citizen daughter or wife.

Hetaira were trained in music, dance, poetry and philosophy and could attend the Symposium.  "Usually living fashionably alone", notes the Encyclopedia Britannica, "the hetairai enjoyed an enviable and respected position of wealth.  Generally foreigners...they were noted for their outstanding physical and cultural accomplishments".

This extraordinary micro-sculpture, just 19mm tall, will be set in a high jewellery lapel pin.  Contact us to enquire.