LATE CLASSICAL PERIOD, CIRCA EARLY 4TH CENTURY B.C.

Clad in a feathered costume and with his arms outstretched, this figure is related to a number of depictions of actors who performed in the “bird choruses” of Athenian comedy. Atop his head sits a separately-made mask in the form of a wrinkled, bearded man. While H. Hoffmann (in O.W. Muscarella, ed., op. cit.) connects this figure to Aristophanes’ comedy The Birds, first produced in 414 B.C., the tradition of actors in bird costumes has roots in earlier mid 6th century B.C plays. For related examples of similarly dressed actors on a black-figured oinochoe and on a red-figured calyx-krater, see no. 11 and fig. 1.6 in M.L. Hart, The Art of Ancient Greek Theater. For a later Hellenistic figure of an actor dressed as a bird, see the one in the Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, inv. no. 1988.34.10.