AN ETRUSCAN BRONZE MIRROR

CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.

Details

AN ETRUSCAN BRONZE MIRROR
CIRCA 3RD CENTURY B.C.
The circular disk incised on one side with four figures, showing the Dioskouroi, nude but for their distinctive Phrygian caps and laced short boots, seated upon folds of drapery, with Helen or Turan-Aphrodite standing between, her head inclined to the right and her long curly hair framing her face, similarly nude with laced boots, folds of drapery gathered between her legs, Menrva-Athena visible behind the central three figures, the goddess wearing her scaled aegis and helmet, a pediment in the background of the scene, perhaps suggesting a temple, with a spiky garland subdivided by four cuffs enclosing the interior, the handle terminating in a stylized animal head
10 in. (25.4 cm.) long

Provenance

Private collection, Barcelona, acquired 1990s.

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Lot Essay

This variation of the four-figure conversation group is found elsewhere, yet in only one other example are the Dioskouroi depicted nude and Menrva-Athena so distinctively rendered; see the example from the Doris Duke collection, formerly of the Arnold Ruesch collection, Christie's, New York, June 2004, lot 232. More commonly, the divine twins are shown wearing tunics, and the figure in the background of the scene is an anonymous female: cf. the mirror from the Casuccini Collection, the Archaeological Museum of Palermo catalogue, Palermo, 1986; R. D. De Puma, Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum 1: Midwestern Collections, Iowa State University Press, 1987, nos 24, 27, 33; and nos 119-120 in I. Jucker, Italy of the Etruscans, the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1991, p. 106-9.

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