Part One - Vilanovan and
Orientalizing Periods

Etruscan Art on the Italian Peninsula
NOTES - Chapter IV, Orientalizing Art in Etruria - Notes

2. For another specimen, similar to our illustration 24, see Dohan, 76, no. 11.

3. Hencken, 1, 369, figure 362a and b.

4. [Pareti, 233, no. 164. This amphora belonged to the household silver from th so-called cella. The word 'Lathia' inscribed on it probably refers to a man called Larth, as proprietor; M. Pallottino, S. Etr., XX [1948/9], 342. Therefore the woman buried in the 'cella' --a burial already belonging to the beginning of our second Orientalizing stage c. 650-630 according to Pareti--was not the first owner of that set of silver. Pallottino's observation tallies with the fact that the ceramic type of the spiral-amphora was certainly older. The Bocchoris Tomb yielded an example [Hencken, 367-8, figure 367b]. Spiral-amphorae made of impasto constituted a leading form of native Orientalizing pottery in Etruria and Latium, both before and around the middle of the seventh century. The latest examples occur in tombs with Late Protocorinthian vases around 630-615. See L. A. Holland, The Faliscans in Prehistoric Times [Papers of the American Academy in Rome, v , 1925], 95-100, figures 1 0-13; Dohan, 61, no. 9.]

5. Museo Gregoriano Etrusco no. 15325; Giglioli, plate 41, figure 1.

6. Herodotus, 1.164. These were the same Phocaeans who later joined their countrymen at Alalia on Corsica, and thereby caused the fatal conflict with the Etruscans and Carthaginians in 538. See also below, p. 112.

7. Domestic wares in the Protocorinthian and Corinthian manner: C. Albizzati, Vasi antichi dipinti del Vaticano, fasc. 11 [Rome, n.d.], 48-63; G. Kubler, 'Some Etruscan Versions of Corinthian Ceramics, Marsyas, 11 [1942], 1-15, plates 1-10; J. G. Szilagyi, 'Le fabbriche di ceramica etrusco-corinzia a Tarquinia', S. Etr., XL [1972], 19-73, plates 1-10.

8. G. Q. Giglioli, 'Materiali per un corpus della ceramica etrusca', S. Etr., XX [1948/9], 241-5, plate 13.

9. Oriental imports: R. D. Barnett, J.H.S., LXVIII [1948], 3-4; idem, A Catalogue of the Nimrud Ivories . . . . in the British Museum [London, 1957], 129, 134. Oriental craftsmen in Etruria: Huls, 134-7. An example possibly showing transfer of motifs from Greek [Corinthian] ceramic decoration to Etruscan ivory carving: the Chiusi situlae discussed below, Chapter 5, pp. 64-6.

10. See above, Chapter 3, Note 5. For the significance of Phoenician crafts as portable prototypes of iconography, and their possible influence on Etruscan painting of the Archaic period, cf. F. Poulsen, Der Orient und die frühgriechische Kunst [Leipzig and Berlin, 1912], 67-72.

11. Pareti, 304-5, no. 303, plate 39. This stand was found in the so-called anticamera, the contents of which, in the opinion of Pareti, belonged to the same burial as that of the left niche [op. cit., 100-4]. However, the furniture of this section is conspicuously lacking in stylistic unity. It includes pieces certainly antedating the middle of the century, like the Villanovan bronze amphora no. 325 [Pareti, 321, plate 44], with others of much later date.

12. Pareti, 234, no. 196, plates 20-1, who [103-4] ascribed the cauldron to the furniture of the so-called cella. The workmanship is not quite the same, but the similarity of style to the stand was already observed by A. Furtwängler, Olympia, Die Augrabungen, IV [ed. E. Curtius] [Berlin, 1890], 125. Accordingly, I date both pieces to the time of the 'cella', approximately 650-640.

For the history of this type of cauldron see E. Kunze and H. Schleif, 'Bericht Äber die Ausgrabungen in Olympia, II', J.D.A.I, LIII [1938], 107-15; F. Matz, Geschichte der griechischen Kunst, 1 [Frankfurt am Main, 1950], 396-400. In Greece, only the earliest cauldrons were decorated with lions' heads; later the protomes were shaped as griffins. The passage in Herodotus, 4.152.4 which mentions 'Argive' cauldrons refers to the latter type.

A complete investigation of the Italian material is lacking. U. Jantzen, Griechische Greifenkessel [Berlin, 1955], puts the Barberini griffin-lion cauldron in his earliest group of hammered bronze protomes, pp. 33-4, and the Vetulonia cauldron in his second, pp. 34-5. H.-V. Herrmann, Die Kessel der orientalisierenden Zeit [Olympische Forschungen, VI] [Berlin, 1966], associates these cauldrons from Praeneste and Vetulonia with one found at Olympia [B 4224, pp. 84-9, plates 1-6]. Cf. also E. Akurgal, Die Kunst Anatoliens [Berlin, 1961], 55-6, figures 35, 39-42. These cauldrons have good claim to be imported pieces. Those from the Regolini-Galassi Tomb were made locally. Their development seems to differ from the Greek; e.g. the lions' heads remained longer in use. Two specimens, Pareti nos. 307-8, have cast lions' heads, turning outwards, attached to their cauldrons by hammered neckpieces. According to Greek standards a date within the second quarter of the century would be assigned to them. The cauldron here under discussion, no. 196, seems to represent a later stage, even from the technical point of view: the lions' heads are turning inward and are entirely cast, not hammered.

13. Pareti, 175-80, no. 1, plate 5. From the same burial as the vase stand no. 303 [30]. For the form of the fibula ['Blattbogenfibel' with transverse staff and foot disc] see J. Sundwall, Die Élteren italilschen Fibeln [Berlin, 1943], 125-7, no. 22. How this giant pin was employed is quite uncertain. Pareti's idea that it formed part of the lady's headgear cannot be maintained. See the review by M. Pallotino, S. Etr., XX [1948/9], 342.

14. Cf. Akurgal, op. cit., 56-69.

15. A. Rumpf, Die Wandmalerei in Veji [Leipzig, 1915], 38-60.

16. See W. von Bissing, J.D.A.I., XXXVIII/XXXIX [1923/4], 224-6; W. L. Brown, The Etruscan Lion [Oxford, 1960], 28, 31, 34; G. Camporeale, La Tomba del Duce [Florence, 1967], 103-4.

17. Rumpf, op.cit., 43.

18. Types of lions: Poulsen, op. cit. [Note 10], 124-5 and figures 134-6, gives a brief account of this zoology. The mane along the back is also found in Protocorinthian lions, e.g. on the Chigi vase. But to transfer this detail to other animals, such as bulls, against all evidence of natural history, seems a habit of Etruscan art.

19. Regional characteristics: in addition to the points discussed in the text above, it should be mentioned that vases with incised decocration continue into this period. A good example of their rather popular style of drawing is the black impasto olla in the Vatican: J. D. Beazley and F. Magi, La raccolta B. Guglielmi nel Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, 1 [Gittà del Vaticano, 1939], 111-19, figurers 1-6, and plate 36. Reflections of Corinthian art are clearly present. The curioius vase from Tragliatello, of Late Protocorinthian form, uses engraved decoration in a similar style. Again one recognizes the Corinthian motifs, e.g. the row of marching soldiers. The drawing is on a level with the Guglielmi vase, or slightly later; probable date, around or a little after 600. G. Q. Giglioli, 'L'oenochoe di Tragliatello', S. Etr., 111 [1929], 111-59, plates 22-7; cf. also F. Slotty, 'Manin Arce', S. Etr., XVIII [1944], 164-80.

20. The absence of base lines in the Regolini-Galassi bronze stand was first observed by Poulsen, op. cit., 124; cf. p. 14, Phoenician examples of the same anomaly.

The matter cannot be discussed here, but a reminder is in place that, while base lines are the rule in Egyptian art, conspicuous exceptions can be found in the art of the Empire: cf., e.g., the wooden chest with a representation of the king's hunt from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the famous reliefs of Sethos I at Karnak, and others [H. SchÉfer and W. Andrae, Die Kunst des alten Orients [Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, II] [Berlin, 1925], plates 336 and 376; pp. 101-3]. Absence of base lines in Cypriote art: in the orbit of Classical art the representation of figures without base lines becomes a provincialism. Interesting examples occur in the Archaic art of Cyprus. In the hunting scenes of the famous ivory box from Enkomi the animals are superimposed as in the Egyptian representations mentioned above [H. T. Bossert, Altsyrien [Tübingen, 1951], 11, no. 166]. The after-effects of this style in provincial Cypriote art can be seen in the limestone box from Tammassos, ibid., 21, no. 54. Cf, with these representations the hunters and animals on the granulated gold bulla from Vulci, H. Mühlestein, Die Kunst der Etrusker [Berlin, 1929], figure 80. Greek art: base lines are the rule; exceptions are very rare. Among the early Greek monuments only the engraved Late Geometric and Subgeometric Boeotian fibulae show a tendency, as a class, to omit base lines from their reprersentations: R. Hampe, Frühe griechische Sagenbilder in Boeotien [Athens, 1936], plates 1-6, 11, 13, 15.

21. C. Densmore Curtis, The Barberini Tomb, M.A.A.R., V [1925], 37-9, no. 73, plates 19-21, figure 1; MÄhlestein, op. cit., figures 127-130.

22. Curtis, op. cit., 29-30, no. 36, plate 13, figures 1-3; Mühlestein, op. cit., figures 27, 28; Huls, 46-7, no. 27, plate 17, figure 1. Fluted bowls, without foot: the form was probably Assyrian in origin, see Matz, op. cit. [Note 12], 445 and note 573. A quite different attempt at combining flat bowls on a high foot with caryatids was made in early Greek art: ibid., 382-4, plates 246, 247. Instead of supporting the rim of the bowl, the caryatids are gathered around the stem. The form represented by the Barberini goblet and similar specimens of ivory or black bucchero seems to have been properly Etruscan, but its antecedents are not yet well known; cf. below, illustration 48, and Pareti, 311 and bibliography. Date and workmanship of the Barberini goblet: Etruscan under Syrian influence, G. Hanfmann, Altetruskische Plastik, 1 [Würzburg, 1936], 24-6; Huls, 137-51. The caryatids resemble those from the antechamber in the Regolini-Galassi Tomb, and from the Tomba Calabrese. A date towards the end of the century seems indicated for both burials: Pareti, 459. It would also fit the horsemen portrayed on the companion piece of the Barberini goblet: Curtis, op.cit., plate 14.

23. Curtis, op. cit., 24-6, nos. 22-4, plates 9-11; Mühlestein, op. cit., figures 31, 32; Huls, 44-6, no. 25, plates 13-15, 16, figure 1.