Lady of Elx

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The famous but controversial Lady of Elx (Dama d'Elx in Catalan, Dama de Elche in Spanish) (the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid calls her "enigmática"), 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, Land of Valencia, Spain). The Lady of Elx is generally believed to be Iberian art of the 4th century B.C., or of the Hellenistic or the Roman periods.

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.

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History

Image:Dama d'Elx.jpg

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 Madrid's National Archeological Museum, where it remains, in spite of appeals to return it to its home town, where it is represented by a reproduction.

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 Valencia.

The statues of the seated Lady of Baza and the Bicha de Balazote are exhibited in the same room of the museum.

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