Greek terracotta figurines in the context of "Ancient Greek pottery"

Tanagra (Greek: Τανάγρα) is a town and a municipality north of Athens in Boeotia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Schimatari. It is not far from Thebes, and it was noted in antiquity for the figurines named after it. The Tanagra figurines were a mass-produced, mold-cast and fired type of Greek terracotta figurine produced from the later fourth century BC, primarily in Tanagra.

The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: Archaic Greek sculpture (from about 650 to 480 BC), Classical (480–323 BC) and Hellenistic thereafter. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.

The Greeks decided very early on that the human form was the most important subject for artistic endeavour. Since they pictured their gods as having human form, there was little distinction between the sacred and the secular in art—the human body was both secular and sacred. A male nude of Apollo or Heracles shows only slight differences in treatment from a sculpture of that year's Olympic boxing champion. The statue (originally single, but by the Hellenistic period often in groups) was the dominant form, although reliefs, often so "high" that they were almost free-standing, were also important.

The Tanagra figurines are a mold-cast type of Greek terracotta figurines produced from the later fourth century BC, named after the Boeotian town of Tanagra, where many were excavated and which has given its name to the whole class. However, they were produced in many cities. They were coated with a liquid white slip before firing and were sometimes painted afterward in naturalistic tints with watercolors, such as the famous "Dame en Bleu" ("Lady in Blue") at the Louvre. They were widely exported around the ancient Greek world. Such figures were made in many other Mediterranean sites, including Alexandria, Tarentum in Magna Graecia, Centuripe in Sicily and Myrina in Mysia.

Although not portraits, Tanagra figures depict real women—and some men and boys—in elegant but everyday costume, with familiar accessories like hats, wreaths or fans. Some character pieces may have represented stock figures from the New Comedy of Menander and other writers. Others continued an earlier tradition of molded terracotta figures used as cult images or votive objects. Typically they are about 10 to 20 centimetres high.

Baubo (Ancient Greek: Βαυβώ) is a minor figure in Greek mythology who does not appear in surviving sources before the fourth century BCE. A fragment from Asclepiades of Tragilus states that she is the wife of Dysaules, who was said to be autochthonous; that they had two daughters, Protonoe and Misa; and that the couple welcomed Demeter into their house.

The fifth century CE Greek grammarian Hesychius recorded the name Baubo in his lexicon, stating that she was the nurse of Demeter. He gives the meaning of the word as 'hollow' or 'stomach' (κοιλίαν, koilian), citing the fifth century BCE philosopher Empedocles as a source.