CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.

Details

AN ETRUSCAN GOLD BEAD NECKLACE
CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.
16 in. (40.5 cm.) long

Provenance

By repute found in the area of Naples.
Ludwig Marx, Mainz or Albert Sieck, Munich.
Katalog der Sammlungen Ludwig Marx - Mainz, Albert Sieck - München, Dr. F.X. Weizinger & Co., Munich, 28-31 October 1918, lot 961, pl. 32.
German private collection, Berlin.
Kunstauktion in Luzern, Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, 14 June 1950, lot 803.
Ernst Kofler-Truniger (1903-1990) and Martha Kofler-Truniger (1918-1999), Lucerne (inv. No. K 728), acquired from the above.
Swiss private collection, Lucerne, acquired from the above circa 1974; thence by descent.

Literature

Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern, Zurich, 1964, p. 41, no. 386, pl. 29, no. 386.

Exhibited

Zurich, Kunsthaus, Sammlung E. und M. Kofler-Truniger, Luzern, 7 June-2 August 1964.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This necklace is composed of forty-five pendants in the shape of pointed elements with human heads surmounted by rosettes. The motif of head-shaped beads probably entered the Etruscan repertoire from Magna Graecia and was used as a building element of both necklaces and earrings. A gold necklace composed of similar beads with rosettes and female heads over pointed elements (either plain like the present example or fluted) is now in the collection of the Penn Museum, inv. no. MS4021.
For another earlier example of gold necklace with beads in the shape of female heads and silenus heads, see no. 265 in M. Cristofani, L'Oro degli Etruschi, Novara, 1983, p. 316, now in the collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, inv. no. 15951.

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