A SUMERIAN ALABASTER FIGURE OF A WORSHIPPER , EARLY DYNASTIC III, CIRCA 2800-2550 B.C.

standing on a base rounded in front with her hands clasped before her in an attitude of prayer, and wearing a long fleece mantle leaving the right shoulder and arm bare, her face with broad aquiline nose, large eyes recessed for inlays, and contoured eyebrows in shallow relief, the hair arranged in a broad circular plait at the back of the head and falling over her cheeks and the nape of her neck.

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1937

"Masterworks of Sculpture," John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, 1956
"Paintings and Sculpture from the Albright Art Gallery," Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1961

Magazine of Art, February 1938, pp. 90-93 (illustrated)
Apollo, July 1939, p. 28 (illustrated)
Art News, 8 June 1940, p. 7
Andrew C. Ritchie, ed., Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. Catalogue of the Paintings and Sculpture in the Permanent Collection, Buffalo, 1949, pp. 178-179, illus, and 205, No. 86
Paul Thomas Welty, The Human Expression, 1976
Eva Andrea Braun-Holzinger, Frühdynastiche Beterstatuen (Abhandlungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, No. 19), Berlin, 1977, p. 83
Steven A. Nash, with Katy Kline, Charlotta Kotik and Emese Wood, Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Painting and Sculpture from Antiquity to 1942, New York, 1979, pp. 52-53 (illustrated)

For three closely related figures from the Temple of Sin (phase VIII) at Khafajah, most likely from the same workshop as the present example, see Henri Frankfort, "Oriental Institute Discoveries in Iraq," Oriental Institute Communications, vol. 19, 1935, p. 67, fig. 75, and Henri Frankfort, Sculpture of the 3rd Millennium B.C. from Tell Asmar and Khafajah (Oriental Institute Publications, no. 44), 1939, p. 68, nos. 106-108, pls. 76-77 (no. 106 = Braun-Holzinger, Op. cit., p. 40 and pl. 11f.g.). Also see André Parrot, Supplément Sumer-Assur, mise à jour 1969 (L’Univers des Formes, suppl. to vols. I-II), Paris, 1969, fig. 26, from Nippur.