Pistillus, the coroplath of Augustodunum
Between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD, a great number of small figurines were produced and distributed across Gaul, and even beyond. These white clay statuettes were produced by casting with very fine clay. The two faces, cast separately, were stuck together with clay slurry then fired, before sometimes being painted. In Roman Gaul, several workshops mass-produced these popular images, which were aimed at a clientèle too poor to purchase bronze statuettes.
As Camille Jullian reminded us in 1920 in his History of Gaul, many of these statuettes have come down to us over the years: "Allusa at Bordeaux, known for his Mothers; the Armorican Rextugénos, for his hieratically rigid Venuses; Sacrillos the Arvernian, from Toulon-sur-Allier, the leading supplier of doves; and above all Pistillus the Aedui, who was a master of the family genre, filling the whole of Gaul with nursing Mothers, children in cots, domestic beds, and guard dogs.
It was thought that Pistiulls was active at Autun around the end of the 2nd century and the start of the 3rd century AD. His production was widely distributed across the whole of Gaul, in the direction of the Atlantic, (via Bourges, Poitiers, Nantes, etc.), towards the east and the north-west along the Via Agrippa. It also reached upper Germany, the provinces of Raetia and Noricum (Mayence, Bavaria, Lake Constance, Austrian Tyrol). The discovery by the Inrap archaeologists of a potter's oven, moulds, figurines and firing failures signed "Pistillus" confirm the presence of his shop at Autun. Pistillus differs from other coroplaths (figurine makers) by his meticulous statuettes and different themes: protective goddesses, Venus, Abundance, and animals, but also tender representations of Roman intimacy such as The Bordeaux lovers, discovered in 1850 where a man and woman exchange caresses in a Roman bed, under the protection of a sleeping dog.
At present, the excavation has produced figurines of Venus, of nursing goddesses, not to mention more erotic works. "One should not mistake the merit of Pistullus and his emulators: their figurines are poor works, made for poor households, which would fill the shops for a few centimes or would be spread out by hawkers at market time", (Camille Julian).
