Gallo-Roman or Roman Statuette (provenance unknown)

This limestone statuette (now in a private collection in Rouergue) is only 30 cms high: a kind of 'fertility fetish'.
A big-breasted woman pours fecundity from an upturned Etruscan vase indicated by hatching.
Small, portable carvings like this could well have influenced the sculptors of themes of Luxury and Concupiscence.

The hatched vase is very reminiscent of the upturned pine-cone (or bunch of grapes), itself thought to be a symbol of sin.