Sarcophagus Lid with a Veiled Woman
Unknown · c. 200-150 BC
A woman lies on a couch with a raised headrest, propped on two cushions, wearing a diadem, earrings, a belted chiton and a himation drawn over her head as a veil. She is dressed for eternity in her jewellery: a necklace, a bracelet shaped like a snake and four rings. Her face was pressed from a mould, while the eyes, the rings and the beads of the necklace were added as small pellets of clay, a technique called pastillage that gives them their relief. The lower body is broken and cracked, but the figure is entire.
The lid was made at Tuscania in the first half of the second century before Christ, when the workshops of the town produced terracotta sarcophagi for the local families. It was purchased in eighteen sixty one from the Campana collection. The museum's records note that it was once paired with a chest decorated with garlands and later with one decorated with dolphins, a reminder that lids and chests were often separated after excavation. Notice the snake bracelet, a fashionable Hellenistic ornament that also turns up in Greek and Egyptian jewellery of the same centuries.
Did You Know? Her eyes, her four rings and the beads of her necklace were stuck on as little pellets of clay before the lid went into the kiln.
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