VATICAN MUSEUMS - GREGORIAN ETRUSCAN MUSEUM (third part)

Room V and VI - Clay objects

“Acroterion with a winged horse” about 490 BC in terracotta still painted

“High reliefs for a pediment” about 300 BC from Tivoli in polychrome terracotta from the area of the Gregorian Bridge on the Aniene River

The broken figures represent the expedition of the Argonauts and are inclined at about 20° as was typical of the pediment reliefs that were to be admired from below

“Frieze with floral decoration and human heads” fourth century BC in polychrome terracotta from Cerveteri, arbitrarily reconstructed in the nineteenth century

“Antefix with a female figure” with open wings of the second century BC in terracotta with polychromic traces

“Female bust” third century BC in terracotta from Cerveteri with very characterized features

“The bust is not part of a canonical production neither has precise comparisons. Some details, such as the hollow face and high cheekbones, are so specific physiognomic elements that denote a specific search in depicting a portrait of a woman not young anymore. The earrings as rings with a lion's head, reproducing specimens in gold disseminated in the Etruscan area and in Magna Graecia, and her fluffy hair, inspired by the portraits of Alexander, recommended the proposed dating” (Web site of the Vatican Museums - mv.vatican.va)

 

Room VII and VIII - Gold objects from Vulci and Artena

“Necklace with spheres” first half of the fourth century BC

“Ring with Scarab” late sixth century BC possibly from Vulci, attributed to the Greek or of Oriental origin engraver conventionally called Master of the Boston Dyonisos. The ring is in gold and the carnelian stone is engraved with the delivery of weapons to Achilles by Thetis

“Pair of cluster earrings” mid-fourth century BC from the Camposcala Necropolis in Vulci. On the back there are three holes which, possibly, would allow the introduction of perfume

 

Room IX - Collection of the Marquis Guglielmi of Vulci

The collection was assembled in the nineteenth century with the excavations in the estates of St. Augustine and Camposcala in the territory of the ancient Etruscan city of Vulci

The collection was in part donated in 1937 and in part bought in 1987

About 800 items including bronzes, Etruscan pottery (clay, bucchero and painted pottery) and Greek pottery, the latter mainly imported from Attica, in the dense network of trade that had in Vulci one of the biggest markets on the Tyrrhenian Sea

“Red-figured Attic stamnos” 440/430 BC, eponymous stamnos of the Guglielmi Painter

The stamnos was used as a vase to be filled with liquids. It is much thicker and shorter than an amphora with two handles also thick, relatively high on its sides

In this splendid stamnos there are represented on one side two warriors greeted by a woman and an old king, on the other, two women supplicants facing a king bald and bearded