Etruscan Statuette

Former TitleStatuette of a Warrior God, probably Tinia

CultureEtruscan

Date460-450 B.C.E.

MediumBronze

DimensionsOverall: 16 inches (40.64 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number30-12

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

Ancient Art

Terms

DescriptionBronze statuette of a bearded hero holding a dagger in his left hand and his right hand raised as if to cast a spear.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Exposition d’objets d’art du moyen âge et de la Renaissance…organisée par la Marquise de Ganay…, Hôtel de Sagan, Paris, May-June 1913.

Small Bronzes of the Ancient World, Detroit Institute of Arts, March 23-April 20, 1947.

Special loan, Oriental Art Institute, University of Chicago, December 1, 1955-January 6, 1956.

2500 Years of Italian Art and Civilization, Seattle Art Museum, November 10-December 8, 1957.

Ancient Italic and Etruscan Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1958.

The Etruscans: Artists of Early Italy, Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, MD, 1958.

Anatomy and Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 8-June 5, 1960.

Masterpieces of Etruscan Art, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, April 21-June 4, 1967.

The Gods Delight: The Human Figure in Classical Bronze, Cleveland Museum of Art, November 16, 1988-January 8, 1989; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, February 9-April 9, 1989; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, May 9-July 9, 1989, no. 40.

Gallery Label

This statuette ranks among the largest and most beautiful Etruscan sculptures in American collections. A photograph made soon after the statuette was discovered reveals that the figure held a lance in his raised right arm. Thus the sculpture may portray Maris (the Etruscan warrior god) or Hercle (the Greek Heracles) or simply a mortal. The pose of the figure is based on slightly earlier Greek sculptures.

Provenance

Found in Apiro, Macerata, Italy;

Eugen Miller von Aichholz (1835-1919), Vienna, by 1913-1918;

Purchased from Eugen Miller von Aichholz by Camillo Castiglioni (1879-1957), Vienna, 1918-1923;

With Jacob Hirsch, New York, by 1930;

Purchased from Hirsch, through Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1930.

Published References

S. de Ricci, “L’art du moyen âge et de la Renaissance à l’hôtel de Sagan,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 4^th per. 2^e semestre, 10 (1913): 71, fig. 40a.

I. Dall’ Osso, Guida illustrata del Museo Nazionale di Ancona (Ancona: 1915), 105.

L. Planiscig, Sammlung Camillo Castilgioni: Bronzestatuetten und Geräte (Vienna: 1923), 17, no. 1, plate 1.

Salomon Reinach, Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine, t. 5, vol. 1 (Paris: Éditions Ernst Leroux, 1924), 264, no. 3.

Carlo Albizzati, “Il Satiro etrusco della Gliptoteca di Monaco,” Rendiconti della Ponteficia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, 3rd ser., III (1924-1925): 79-81, plate 2.

Frederik Muller et Cie., Collections Camillo Castiglioni, II: Bronzes antiques et de la Renaissance (Amsterdam: November 18, 1925), 1, no. 1, plate 1.

Pericle Ducati, Storia dell’arte etrusca, vol. 1 and 2 (Florence: Rinascimento del Libro, 1927), 1:317; 2: plate 135, fig. 349.

Paolo Arias, “Einige Bedeutsame Antiken in Amerika,” Pantheon 12 (July-December, 1933), 367.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 116.

Giulio Quirino Giglioli, L'arte etrusca (Milano: Fratelli Treves , 1935), plate 123.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 17, fig. 8.

Dorothy Kent Hill, Catalogue of Classical Bronze Sculpture in the Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1949), 12.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 26.

George Hanfmann, Etruskische Plastik (Stuttgart: Hans E. Gunther Verlag, 1956) 7, 14, plate 22.

2500 Years of Italian Art and Civilization, exh. cat. (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum, 1957), fig. 5.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 29.

Richard Stuart Teitz, Masterpieces of Etruscan Art (Worcester, MA: Worcester Art Museum, 1967), 63-64, 154, (repro.).

Guido Mansuelli, “La recezione dello stile severo e del classicismo nella scultura etrusca (Note problematiche),” Revue Archéologique (1968): 76-77.

Willy Zschietzschmann, Harald Busch, and Gottfried Edelmann, Etruskische Kunst (Frankfurt am Main: Umschau-Verlag, 1969), xli, fig. 115.

John Cooney, “Art of the Ancient World,” Apollo, n.s. 130 (December 1972): 483, fig. 17.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 39.

Maja Sprenger and Gilda Bartoloni, Die Etrusker. Kunst und Geschichte (Munich: Hirmner Verlag, 1977), 136, fig. 184.

Otto Brendel, Etruscan Art (New York: Penguin Books, 1978), 311, 469n15.

Tobias Dohrn, Die etruskische Kunst im Zeitalter der griechischen Klassik: die Interimsperiode (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1982), 22-23, no. 1.

Emeline Richardson, Etruscan Votive Bronzes: Geometric, Orientalizing, Archaic, vol. 1 and 2 (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1983), 1:206-07, 2: plate 144, figs. 479-80.

Maja Sprenger and Gilda Bartoloni, The Etruscans: Their History, Art, and Architecture (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1983), 130, plate 184.

Luciano Manino, Il classicismo nella scultura etrusca: appunti delle lezioni (Turin: G. Giappichelli, 1984), 90 ff.

Mauro Cristofani, I bronzi degli Etruschi (Novara: Istituto Geografico De Agostini S.p.A., 1985), 164, fig. 55, 270-71.

Eric Hostetter, Bronzes from Spina, I (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1986), 201n70.

Suzanne Fabing, “40. Warrior” in The Gods Delight: The Human Figure in Classical Bronze, ed. Arielle Kozloff and David Mitten, (Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1988), 223-28, no. 40.

Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 27, fig. 5.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 120.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 14, fig. 35.

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