Late Etruscan Urn | Harvard Art Museums

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1932.56.118
Title: Late Etruscan Urn
Classification: Sculpture
Work Type: sculpture
Date: 3rd century BCE
Period: Hellenistic period
Culture: Etruscan
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/292109

Physical Descriptions

Medium: Volcanic stone
Dimensions: 45 x 64 x 28 cm (17 11/16 x 25 3/16 x 11 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: Dr. Harris Kennedy, Milton, MA (by 1932), gift; to the William Hayes Fogg Art Museum, 1932.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Dr. Harris Kennedy, Class of 1894
Accession Year: 1932
Object Number: 1932.56.118
Division: Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact: am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Published Catalogue Text: Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums , written 1990
113

Late Etruscan Urn

A winged genius appears on the front of the urn, in flying pose.

Winged monsters and genii are very popular as symbolic, funerary decorations, carved and painted, on the fronts of late Etruscan or Italic urns. The painted travertine urn in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with an elegant lady on the lid, is dated in the third century B.C. and features a winged, fish-tailed female creature like Scylla on the front (Comstock, Vermeule, 1976, pp. 249-250, no. 385). The full catalogue of what the Etruscans after 350 B.C. sought in winged "genii" appears on both long sides of a sarcophagus from Bomarzo in the British Museum. They are both sexes and, demonstrably, of all ages—both young and elegant and old, grizzled, and wrinkled.

Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer

Publication History

Joshua Whatmough, "Two Etruscan Inscriptions", Classical Philology (1942), vol. 37, no. 4, p. 431
Cornelius C. Vermeule III and Amy Brauer, Stone Sculptures: The Greek, Roman and Etruscan Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 125, no. 113

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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1932.56.118: Late Etruscan Urn