Cinerary Urn Lid with a Garlanded Man
Unknown · 2nd century BC
On this lid the dead man reclines on his couch in a tunic and cloak, a headband over his hair, holding a phiale for pouring an offering and wearing a thick garland around his neck like a necklace. What makes it stand out is the colour. The lid was covered with white slip and painted, and the polychromy has survived unusually well: you can still read the tones of the clothing and the flesh, which on most urns of this type have washed away. The chest below has lost its paint and the head has a few chips, but the object is intact.
Both parts come from Chiusi, the great Etruscan centre for these terracotta urns, and date to the second century before Christ, the lid from the first half and the chest from the second half of the century. The urn was purchased in eighteen sixty one and bears a Campana number, which tells you it belonged to the Marquis Campana, the Roman collector whose bankruptcy sent thousands of Etruscan objects to Paris. The garland is the sign of the banquet, the setting the Etruscans chose for the afterlife.
Did You Know? Unlike most of its neighbours, this lid still wears the colours it was painted with more than two thousand years ago.
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