votive figure
- Museum number
- 1824,0453.11
- Description
-
Bronze votive group of a man embracing a woman, standing on a square base with holes in each corner for nails to attach it to some object, with which they are cast in one. Both have their arms around each other’s backs, he has his right hand on her right breast, and with her left hand she holds up the skirt of her tunic. Both wear pointed boots and cloaks draped over one shoulder and a half-diadem, with a thick fringe or roll of hair framing the face from ear to ear; the man’s hair hangs luxuriantly down his back, while the woman’s hair is rolled up over a sphendonè. Perhaps representing Tinia (Zeus) and Uni (Hera).
- Production date
- 500BC-475BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 11.10 centimetres
-
Width: 6.50 centimetres
-
Depth: 4.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- The heads, eyes and hands are disproportionately large and typical for archaic Etruscan small-scale bronzes.
There have been several suggestions as to the identity of the couple but a likely identification is that they are Tinia and Uni, the Etruscan equivalents of Zeus and Hera. They are more likely to represent deities than dedicators.
Though in Etruscan art cavorting satyrs and maenads are often shown in intimate embraces, this is less frequent between human beings and tends to be characteristic of ‘married’ couples, emphasizing the importance of the couple in Etruscan society. The man’s Zeus-like appearance and the fact that they both wear diadems suggest that they are an aristocratic couple engaged in ‘stately love-making’, comparable to the activity of Zeus and Hera.
[J. Swaddling in Bruschetti et al 2014, III.83]
Riis, P. J., 'Tyrrhenika. An archaeological study of the Etruscan Sculpture of the archaic and classical periods', Copenhagen, 1941, p. 90, 168, 181.
Sprenger , M., Bartoloni, G., 'Die Etrusker', (Hirmer) Munich 1977, fig. 145.
Brendel, O., 'Etruscan Art', Pelican History of Art 1978 p. 301, fig. 220.
G. Saeflund in 'Italian Iron Age B.M.', ed. J. Swaddling (1982), 1986, p. 471-478, no. 8.
- Location
- On display (G71/dc22)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2014, 22 Mar-30 Sep, Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca e della Citta di Cortona, ' La Gran Bretagna e gli Etruschi '.
- Acquisition date
- 1824
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1824,0453.11
