Description: As touchable objects, figurines have potential for a potent agency in relation to those who use them. This volume considers the figurine as a key conceptual and material problematic in the art history of antiquity through comparative juxtaposition and deep art-historical engagement with Chinese, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican, and Greco-Roman cultures.
Review Quotes: "Elsner's book should be used ... as a springboard for scholars and students to experiment with, pushing themselves to articulate and theorize their own approach to figurines, miniaturization, scale, and animation in their respective fields of study, and to conceive of figurines as semiotic icons in playful, creative ways. Scholars and students of art history, archaeology, and the study of material culture, will therefore find this book potent with questions that may inspire innovative studies in their own regions, cultures, and periods of specialty." -- Liat Naeh, BMCR
"Scintillating." -- Michael Squire, Greece & Rome