Sarcophagus Lid with a Crowned Man
Unknown · c. 250 BC
The man lying on this lid wears a crown and a cloak draped around his lower body, a garland around his neck and a ring on his finger, and holds a phiale in his hand. He reclines on two cushions, as if on a banqueting couch, and looks out at you. His face was pressed from a mould, while the body was modelled by hand in two pieces; the tip of his nose is lost and the clay is crossed by cracks, but the figure is essentially complete. On the back of each part a letter was scratched before firing, a workshop mark to keep the halves together.
The lid belongs with the chest decorated with griffins beneath it, and both were made at Tuscania around two hundred and fifty before Christ. The tombs of Tuscania contained dozens of such sarcophagi, each with a portrait like figure of the dead. The garland and the bowl show him at the eternal feast that Etruscans imagined for the afterlife. The piece was bought in eighteen sixty one from the Campana collection. Notice how the sculptor spent his care on the face and hands and let the legs dissolve into a summary block.
Did You Know? A single letter scratched on the back of each half of the lid was the potter's way of making sure the two pieces were reunited after firing.
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