The enigmatic Dame à la capuche
The statuette figure known as La Dame à la capuche or La Figurine à la capuche (the
hooded woman or the hooded figurine) from the cave known as the grotte du Pape at
Brassempouy in the southwestern corner of France is one of the most frequently
reproduced and most known objects in the entire archaeological record. I would like to
uncoil what is so unique, rare about this sculpture, making it stand out in the series of
the Gravettian figure depictions preserved until today.
La Dame à la capuche had been found during the excavations of Edouard Piette and
Joseph de la Porterie, that had taken place from 1894 to 1897. More precisely, it was
found by Piette in 1894 on the left-side of l’Avenue, an area of roughly 5 m by 5 m and
in the level E of the grotte du Pape, which is attributed in today’s terms to the
Gravettian (ca. 28–22,000 BP), where all the many other mammoth-ivory sculpted
human images from Brassempouy, except for Le Torse, were also found (fig. 1). La
Dame à la capuche was found in an ochre-stained clay sediment, from which the
statuette had taken its yellow hue. The figure was sculpted in the hard, central core of
a mammoth tusk and has 3,65 cm in height. Despite the absence of sexual anatomy, it
is supposed that this sculpture represents the face of a female.1 The face is of subtriangular
shape, well balanced, with the forehead, eyebrows, nose and chin in relief,
the mouth and ears missing (fig. 2-3). As for the eyes, the only visible part are the
pupils, especially the one on the right. A grid pattern made of vertical incisions
decorates the top and back of the head and falls on both sides of the thin neck. Its
meaning remains debatable with many interpretating it as braids, a veil, a net, a wig
etc.
The techniques used to make this statuette are very complex: incisions for the grid
pattern and the facial features, perforation for the pupil of the eyes, scraping and
polishing to model the face. The sculpture has a significant fissure along the entire
length of the right hemiface, from the “hair” to below the chin. In 1904 Piette donated,
and by that ensured the conservation of his collection – almost all the Upper
Palaeolithic female figures known to prehistoric science at that time, including La
Dame à la capuche, to the National Archaeology Museum in Saint Germain-en-Laye.
1 White 2006, p. 298.
The palaeolithic images of women had frequently been the subject of generalizing
stereotypes and the diversity of them and possible alternative interpretations have
been left out.2 As Randall White points out, at the time of the first discoveries in the
late 19th century, the main discussion around the palaeolithic images of women focused
on the question of their racial origin.3 This view dominated until well after World War
I due to the colonialist attitude of the time. The sculptures were read as portraiture, as
realistic depictions.4 When it comes to La Dame à la capuche, Edouard Piette believed
that it was a fragment of a full-body sculpture and that the general appearance of the
figure would be Mongolian.5 He interpretated the grid pattern as an Egyptian-type wig.
Since the Second World War there have been many interpretative frames applied to
palaeolithic female images with the focus shifting from race to their status as women.
Concerning the assemblage of figures from Brassempouy an important re-analysis of
Piette’s collection, as well as new excavations, were done by Henri Delporte who
constructed a credible new synthesis of the site. Concerning La Dame à la capuche, he
didn’t rule out the possibility of the head originally belonging to a body, and he
supported the hypothesis of the grid pattern representing a particular arrangement of
the hair.6 The most recent and relative study of the Brassempouy figures has been
carried out by Randall White. He concluded that it is not probable that the head had a
corresponding body and that it was more likely supposed to be a self-standing head,
which after an accident resulting in a fracture that runs along a part of her posterior
surface, was abandoned or “used as it was”.7 Bearing in mind that all the sculptures
found in l’Avenue had been somehow damaged during fabrication, he argues that
l’Avenue in Brassempouy could have been a kind of atelier for ivory-sculpting.8
My focus will be on discussing the unique features of La Dame à la capuche and what
makes her so attractive even without primary and secondary sexual characteristics,
that attracts the most attention from the Upper Palaeolithic material culture. If the
human, especially female image, has an important place in palaeolithic iconography,
the representation of the face is rarer. Nonetheless, several other detailed faces are
2 Nelson 1990, p. 11.
3 White 2006, pp. 276-281.
4 Ibidem, p. 283.
5 Ibidem, pp. 274-275
6 Delporte 1993, p. 27.
7 White 2006, pp.293-294.
8 White 2006, pp.294-296.
known, such as the Negroid Head from Balzi Rossi or Dolní Věstonice Venus XV (fig.
4). Beside these more detailed depictions there is a larger group of schematic heads
reduced to simple spheres including figures from the sights of Kostenki (fig. 5),
Grimaldi, Dolní Věstonice etc. But what makes the representation of our face so special
is the geometric construction of it which makes it seem almost modern,
contemporary9. Its careful construction and the subtle translation of the look through
the play of hollows and relief make it unique. Another infrequent and highly discussed
feature of La Dame à la capuche is the hair/head-covering. Various types of hairdos
and head-coverings can also be seen represented on “venuses” (fig. 6) like on the
famous Venus of Willendorf, which bears a depiction of “a fiber-based woven cap”10.
All in all, what makes this figure so distinctive from the other Gravettian “venuses” is
the presence of both the aspects of a representation of a face and an elaborate hairdo,
which is scarce in the Upper Palaeolithic. Another reason for which it is eminent is the
mysterious expression in her eyes, which are rendered by controlled abstractionism.
Going further, it would be called-for to ask why the statuette La Dame à la capuche
differs from the other palaeolithic images of women, but knowing that our knowledge
of this group of depictions is very limited.
9 Simonet 2023.
10 Soffer, Adovasio, Hyland, 2000, p. 518.
Fig. 1, The approximate find locations of the Brassempouy figurines.
Randall White, ‘The Women of Brassempouy: A Century of research and
Interpretation’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2006, No.4., p. 285.
Fig. 2, La Dame à la capuche
https://musee-archeologienationale.fr/collection/objet/la-dame-la-capuche
Fig. 3, La Dame à la capuche
https://musee-archeologienationale.fr/collection/objet/la-dame-la-capuche
Fig. 4, Detailed representations of Gravettian human faces. No. 1: La Dame à la
capuche (Landes, France), No. 2: Negroid Head from Balzi Rossi (Italy), No. 3: Dolní
Věstonice Venus XV (Czech Republic).
https://www.hominides.com/art-prehistorique/dame-de-brassempouy/
Fig. 5, Simplified representations of Gravettian human faces from Kostienki.
https://www.hominides.com/art-prehistorique/dame-de-brassempouy/
Fig. 6, Motifs decorating the heads of Gravettian female statuettes. No. 1: La Dame à
la capuche (Landes, France), No. 2: the woman with the squared head of Laussel
(Dordogne, France), No. 3: the Venus of Renancourt (Somme, France), No. 4: Negroid
Head from Balzi Rossi (Italy), No. 5: Venus of Willendorf (Austria), No. 6: the isolated
head of Kostenki I-1 (Russia), No 7: statuette 83-2 of Kostenki I-1 (Russia), No. 8:
female statuette of Mal’ta (Russia), No. 9: female statuette of Bouret’ (Russia).
https://www.hominides.com/art-prehistorique/dame-de-brassempouy/
Bibliography:
Henri Delporte, ‘L’image de la femme dans l’art préhistorique’, Paris 1993.
Sarah M. Nelson, ‘Diversity of the Upper Palaeolithic “Venus” figurines and
archaeological mythology’, in Sarah M. Nelson and Alice B. Kehoe (eds.), Powers of
Observation: Alternative Views in Archaeology, Archaeological Papers of the
American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, 1990, pp. 11–22.
Catherine Schwab, Nicolas Mélard, Philippe Catro, ‘Coup de projecteur sur la Dame de
Brassempouy, de la fouille ancienne à l’étude par imagerie 3D’, Antiquités nationales,
2021, no. 50/51, pp. 88-98.
Aurélien Simonet, ‘La Dame de Brassempouy (Landes)’, Hominidés,
https://www.hominides.com/art-prehistorique/dame-de-brassempouy/, 1. 11. 2023.
Olga Soffer, James M. Adovasio, David C. Hyland, ‘The “Venus” Figurines: Textiles,
Basketry, Gender, and Status in the Upper Paleolithic’, Current Anthropology, 2000,
No. 4, pp. 511-537.
Randall White, ‘The Women of Brassempouy: A Century of research and
Interpretation’, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2006, No.4., pp. 250-
303.