The Etruscan World (Routledge Worlds)

• chapter 55: Portraiture –

that realistic portraiture in terracotta was not inconceivable at this time.”^44 Examples
include the bust of a woman from Cerveteri (Figure 55.8),^45 the Malavolta head from
Veii, which Brendel describes as “a near-portrait” since the artist gave the young man “an
emphatically non-conformist, personal face,”^46 and male heads from Tessennano,^47 the
Manganello deposit (this one may represent “a stroke victim”)^48 and the Ara della Regina
sanctuary at Tarquinia.^49 Thus, the customized terracotta votives were primarily male,^50
with artists focusing both on age and individual facial characteristics, as well as, at times,
the state of the donors’ health.
Votive heads in bronze, either alone or as part of a full-length statue, were also produced
in the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods, and these are more easily characterized as
portraits even though, like their terracotta counterparts, they share some standardized
features that most likely represent the styles of workshops that produced them. Striking
examples include the heads of a boy now in Florence and a young man from Fiesole,^51
as well as those found on the bust of the so-called “Brutus,”^52 and the statue of Aule
Meteli (Figure 55.9), known as an outstanding example of Etruscan craftsmanship since
its discovery in 1566.^53

CONCLUSION

The interest in physiognomic individualization in Etruscan art, which began in the
seventh century bce and remained strong through the Hellenistic period, generated
the creation of realistic likenesses and “can hardly be explained as anything other than
an attempt at portraiture.”^54 This genre, therefore, in all of its possible manifestations

• typical, real, proto and quasi – was not only one of the most distinctive features of
  Etruscan art, but it also demonstrates that the beginnings of modern portraiture can be
  traced to their customs and achievements.

Figure 55.8 Bust of a woman from the Vignale deposit, Cerveteri, third century bce. Vatican

Museums, Inv. 14107. (Photo: Courtesy of Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, Vatican).