The statue is complete and in a very good state of preservation; the dark-colored surface is partially covered with a green patina, mostly on the upper body. The head is hollow, but the weight of the piece in the lower part suggests that the legs, or even part of the chest, are solid cast (the presence of clay within the hole does not allow us to determine how hollow the statue is).
The cylindrical and narrow shape of the object dictates the thin and slender proportions of the woman reproduced by the statuette: she is standing upright on a small rectangular base with an irregular bottom which does not guarantee the object’s balance.
Only few details of her clothing are clearly identifiable: she seems nevertheless to wear a tunic, whose neckline, upper part and sleeves are decorated with small vertical incisions, and a sort of long skirt that reaches her ankles, held by a belt, the ends of which form a reversed "V" on the legs. She is shod in small pointed boots barely separated by an incised line.
Bronze rings, whose purpose may be purely ornamental, hang from the suspension rings attached to the shoulders. On the back of the piece and at ankle level, a suspension ring and a sort of small container with a rounded and closed base are soldered; their meaning and purpose still remain unclear, but suggest a system allowing the threading of a thin stem (vertically, both elements are on the same axis).
To the simple and linear shapes of the body echoes a face with somewhat naive features and a severe expression: the arched brows in relief surmount the large almond-shaped eyes, the nose is straight and prominent, a small horizontal engraving indicates the mouth. The hair covers the head like a thick skullcap and descends down to the neck; in the upper part it terminates in a tubular-shaped edge which might have been used as a neck for the hollow part of the statuette.
No precise elements enable us to identify the figure represented: the gesture performed by the woman (she bends her arms to her chest and encircles her bare breasts with her hands), whose very ancient iconographic tradition dates back to the Neolithic period, certainly links her with the sphere of fertility and fecundity. She could therefore be a deity.
The function of this unique piece is enigmatic: the structure refers to the Luristan tubular "standards", a number of which represent a similar subject which are nevertheless entirely hollow and mostly devoid both of the shoulders rings and of the system on the back, and should therefore have another use.
The closest parallel for this work - formally, but also stylistically - might be found in a pre-Achaemenid statuette from the David-Weill collection that P. Amiet presents as a female toiletry object, which perfectly matches with our example from an iconographic point of view: a mirror handle or a cosmetics case. This last hypothesis is particularly appealing, especially for our piece, since it can be imagined that after using the product, the small makeup stick would be threaded through the suspension ring and the lower base, thus remaining easily accessible.

All e-Tiquities have been searched in the Art Loss Register database.