Statue-vessel Northern Iran at The Louvre, Paris

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Thanks to the kindness of Mademoiselle Jacqueline Blottin, a former student of the Ecole du Louvre with a passion for Oriental Archaeology, which left her entire estate to the Friends of the Louvre, an outstanding Iranian statue from Kaluraz (North Iran) has joined the collections of the Department of Oriental Antiquities. Dating back to the first millennium BC, this statue reveals its obvious connection to anthropomorphic and zoomorphic statues of the Iron Age discovered by renowned Iranian archaeologist O. Ezat Neghaban in the early 1960s at the Marlik necropolis not far from Kaluraz. The three-tiered headdress rings on this statue correspond to a collar that opens at the top of a vase-like mouth, giving it an air of elegance. Made entirely of hollow material, its orange-colored pulp has a shiny surface that catches the eye. This statue-vase represents a female character whose nature remains unclear, yet she is adorned with prestigious attributes some of which have disappeared over time; initially, she wore necklaces and earrings in her ears, visible through two clearly defined perforations on each side of her head. A majestic headdress extends from her crown to the rear, where it meets a long and carefully crafted mat flanked by free hair strands made by incisions. As one of only a dozen known copies of its type, this statue at the Louvre surpasses its counterparts in size and balance of proportions.