❊ etruscan art ❊

⚡️🏺🦆

[romegreeceart]

Etruscan birds

* 700-300 BCE

* Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm

Stockholm, November 2023

[tintinnabulums]

Funerary urn of Fastia Velsi. Late 3rd c. B.C., limestone or travertine and pigment. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. (source)

[image description: rectangular urn described above. the top is decorated with a depiction of a veiled woman, Fastia Velsi, reclining on two cushions. the front of the urn shows Skylla, a winged figure with fish tails instead of legs. /end id]

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

an Etruscan Hare. 

aiming for a bit of a beatrix potter meets archaeology  based on this sarcophagus

[aphroditeurania22]

Etruscan statue of Apollo Inspired by a statue of Alexander the Great by Lysippos.

Statue of Apollo dated between 310-300 BC was found at the Scasato Temple in Falerii. It is made of terracotta and it was located in Villa Giulia, outside of Rome.

National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia - Rome, Italy

[tintinnabulums]

Painted plaque. ca 470 B.C., terracotta and pigment. Museum of Fine Arts Boston. (source)

[image description: plaque described above featuring a female lyre-player in a chiton, himation, and sandals. a plant is to her right. /end id]

[studylatin]

A splendid Etruscan mirror (c. 350 B.C.) of bronze depicting Peleus catching Thetis unawares during her bridal coiffing. The characters names are engraved: ΠΕΛΕ on the left, ΘΕΘΙΣ in the middle, and the attendant nereid ΓΑΛΑΙΝΑ (Calaina or Galene) on the right. So many pleasing details: the delicate leaf-border, the figures’ intricate hair, Thetis’ face in the mirror, the dog at their feet, the cista of toiletries! (Image via The Met, 09.221.16.)

[nereiids]

San Casciano dei Bagni bronzes  ©: Ministero della cultura

[tintinnabulums]

Carved amber bow of a fibula. ca. 500 B.C. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (x)

[image description: photo of small amber carving described above depicting a couple reclining on a couch. the woman wears a pointed hat and holds a small vase and leans over a man. a bird sits on their shoulders and a smaller figure of an attendant is at their feet. end id.]

[tintinnabulums]

Architectural Relief Depicting the Gigantomachy. 3rd - 2nd century B.C., terracotta and pigment. The Art Institute of Chicago. (x)

[image description: photo of the sculpture described above, which depicts three headless figures: a god and goddess in flowing robes stand behind a kneeling giant with wings and serpent-like legs. end id.]

[tintinnabulums]

Oval cista with Amazonomachy. Vulci, 340 - 300 B.C., bronze. Gregorian Etruscan Museum. (x)

[image description: small bronze container with feet described above. the sculpted handle on the lid depicts a man and a woman on the backs of two geese. the sides of the container are elaborately embossed. the side visible in the image is decorated with a frieze of armed Amazons and delicate floral patterns. end id.]

[tintinnabulums]

Sarcophagus. Tuscania, necropolis of Carcarello, Vipinana tomb. 310 - 300 B.C., tufa. Gregorian Etruscan Museum. 

“The deceased is depicted reclining, wearing a convivial crown, and with a phial (a cup for libations) on the right. The scene on the front of the casket is set in a natural environment, as indicated by the stony ground. Artemis and Apollo are seated at the extremities, winged and armed with bows; apparently calm, they are massacring the twelve children of Niobe, here represented by just three boys and three young girls, alongside the mother and the elderly teacher, depicted in attitudes of desperation. On the short side on the right there is the destruction of the body of Hector, dragged by Achilles' chariot; on the left, there is instead the duel between a centaur and two Lapiths.

The lid offers a beautiful example of a typological portrait, adhering to the mid-Italic concept of portraiture, expressing the encounter between late-Classical models and the search for individualisation, introduced by Lysippos. The choice of mythical subjects for the case is clearly studied, with emphasis on the patrimony of ethical values, indicating that lack of respect for the latter incurs divine retribution. On account of these aspects of intellectual refinement, as well as for its stylistic characteristics, the sarcophagus may be ascribed to a high-level workshop in Tuscania or Tarquinia, where it would have been commissioned by a cultured patron; the Sarcophagus of the Poet may be attributed to the same workshop. (x)”

[id: photo of the sarcophagus described above, which has a portrait of the deceased reclining and holding a phial. the side of the sarcophagus visible in the image depicts the massacre of the children of Niobe by Artemis and Apollo. end id.]

[tintinnabulums]

Applique with the head of Medusa. Vulci. Late 3rd - first half of 2nd century B.C.; gold. Gregorian Etruscan Museum. 
[id: photo of a small gold plaque in the form of the head of Medusa in relief. she looks up and to her left, with lips slightly parted. a pair of small wings sit atop her head among her hair. serpents intertwine in her hair and under her chin. end id.]

[tintinnabulums]

Sarcophagus with polychrome relief. Cerveteri, Banditacci Necropolis, Tomb of the Sarcophagi. 400 - 375 B.C.; marble. Gregorian Etruscan Museum.

“On the lid the deceased is depicted reclining, cloaked, crowned, adorned with jewels and with a patera for libations; next to the head there is a folded liber linteus, a book written on a linen cloth, perhaps a sacred text. The seahorses on the tympanum allude to the journey into the Underworld by sea, while the two semi-reclining figures with a krater recall a symposium transposed into the hereafter. On the casket there is a funeral procession with the deceased depicted on a chariot with his wife, accompanied by musicians (playing the tibia, the lyre and the horn) and dancers, with a cloaked figure and a priest with a lituus (stick curved like a staff). It is one of the most ancient specimens in the Etruscan series. The iconography combines the novelty of the procession with themes of archaic tradition: the banquet, musicians, dance and the married couple in attendance.” (x)

[id: photo of the marble sarcophagus described above. on the lid, the deceased, a bearded man, lies with a book next to his head. the side of the sarcophagus is decorated with a depiction of a funeral procession. traces of brown pigment can be seen on the faces and arms of the figures in the procession. end id.]

[tintinnabulums]

Graziani Putto. Sanguineto, near Lake Trasimeno. Early 2nd century B.C., bronze. Gregorian Etruscan Museum. 

“The statue represents a naked youth seated on the ground, with his body tipped backwards and his left leg bent under his right one. On the latter is an Etruscan inscription "to the god Tec Sans as a gift". His arms are outstretched and he holds a bird in the right hand and a ball in the left. From his neck hangs a large seal, while he has two rings around his ankle and right wrist and a spiral armilla on his left wrist. His face, smiling and chubby, and the vivacity of his movements refer the bronze to a Hellenistic matrix, a period that saw in Etruria a great diffusion of ex votos of this type, both clay and bronze [cf. Carrara putto]. The "Graziani putto", destined for the divinity Tec Sans, protectress of children, is one of the various attestations of indigenous cults in the area north-east of Lake Trasimeno.” (x)

[id: photo of the bronze statue described above, which depicts a smiling, seated child holding a bird in one hand and a ball in the other. end id.]

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Tomb of the Cai Cutu family.

Date: 3rd-1st centuries B.C.

Provenience: Perugia, National Archaeological Museum of Umbria (Museo archeologico nazionale dell’Umbria)

[tintinnabulums]

Mirror with engraving of Calchas. Vulci. Late 5th century B.C., bronze. Gregorian Etruscan Museum. 

“This famous mirror shows an elderly haruspex intent on examining the liver of a sacrificed animal for drawing auspices from it. The Etruscan inscription describes him as Kalkhas, that is the mythical Greek soothsayer Calchas represented here in the Etruscan iconographic version with the attribute of wings, a clear characteristic that underlines his function of go-between between earthly and transcendent reality. The foot placed on a rock is to be noted. This is a fundamental action in the divining process by the haruspex who in doing this establishes contact with the earth as the site of the natural sphere and of the underworld.” (x)

[id: photo of circular bronze mirror described above, which is engraved with an image of the soothsayer Kalkhas examining a liver. end id]

[tintinnabulums]

Statue of a youth. Tarquinia. Late 4th - 3rd century B.C., bronze. Gregorian Etruscan Museum. 

“The statue, originally fixed on a stone base, is missing the left arm and two fingers of the right hand; these latter were broken in ancient times. On the arm there is an incomplete Etruscan inscription mentioning a votive offering to Selvans and to Śuri, etymologically the “black”, a sort of underworld Apollo for the Etruscans. Votive offerings depicting seated children have been found in the ancient Etruscan shrines of Lake Trasimeno [cf. Graziani Putto], Vulci, and Cerveteri. On account of the mature appearance of the face, this bronze work has hypothetically been identified with the mythical Tagetes, the prophet-child with the wisdom of an elder, who prodigiously appeared from ground ploughed too deeply by a farmer in Tarquinia and who was the first to dictate to the principes Etruriae the disciplina etrusca, or rather the foundations of the Etruscan religion, subsequently codified in sacred books.

Considering the high quality of the statue and the fact that the bulla or amulet it wears was an attribute of high-ranking youths during puberty, it would in any case have been dedicated by an eminent personage to an urban shrine in ancient Tarquinia.” (x)

[id: photo of statue described above, which depicts a seated youth wearing an amulet and turning to look behind themselves. end id]