Cinerary Group with a Reclining Man and a Winged Woman
Unknown · c. 400-375 BC
A man reclines on a couch with a phiale in his hand, and a winged woman in a belted dress and sandals sits at his feet; both have lost their heads. The stone is the so called pietra fetida, fetid stone, a local limestone from around Chiusi that smells of sulphur when it is worked. The heads were carved separately and set into sockets in the necks, which is why they could be lost. The interior is hollow: this is a cinerary urn, and the ashes of the man portrayed were placed inside his own effigy.
The group was made at Chiusi in the first quarter of the fourth century before Christ, in the classical period, and once formed a more elaborate monument with two smaller groups at the ends, a small phallic column and a base carved with reliefs, all now gone. The winged woman is a demon of the Etruscan underworld, of the kind that accompanies the dead on their journey. The urn was purchased in eighteen sixty one. Look at how the folds of the mantle and the dress are cut into the soft stone in broad, simple ridges, a manner that suited the material well.
Did You Know? The stone is called pietra fetida, fetid stone, because it gives off a smell of sulphur when it is cut.
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