Terracotta head of a young man

Etruscan, 300-250 BC
From Campania, Calvi, Italy

A fine Etruscan terracotta sculpture

This head represents a young man with curling locks of hair. It was probably part of a statue that was either a cult image or a votive object.

The head is probably a product of combined Etruscan and Latin or Campanian artistic development. The fine workmanship represents the high-point of this local craft: firing large-scale works of terracotta is particularly difficult, but in Etruria sculpted cinerary urns (containers for the cremated remains of the dead) and elaborate architectural decoration had been produced in this medium since the sixth century BC.

O. Brendel, Etruscan art, Pelican History of Art (Yale University Press, 1995)

E. Macnamara, The Etruscans-1 (London, The British Museum Press, 1990)