– 69 –
Warrior figure with sword,
Bronzeage, ca. 300 BC - 200 AD (*)
bronze, base
Although images of humans and ani-
mals are occasionally found on reli-
efs of early bronze drums and ritual
vessels, three-dimensional sculptures
with such subjects are exceedingly
rare in the art of the Bronze Age !
This striking standing figure possibly
depicts a warrior. It is very animated
with an expressive face, bulging eyes
and an aggressive open mouth. In his
left arm he holds an unfortunately
unrecognizable possibly fragmentary
roundish object – a severed head His
proper right hand holds, at hip level,
the handle of a sword.
As most of the very few known Bron-
ze Age human sculptures do not yet
follow a developed iconography, this
example is unique!
Provenance
Dutch Private Collection (1960s or
earlier)
Kurt Sandmair (1932-2013), Munich,
Germany (acquired in the early 1980s
in Amsterdam)
€ 6.000 - 12.000