Why clay?
Etruscan sculptors worked in stone, bronze and ivory, but terracotta, or fired clay, was a favourite material for large figures. Part of the reason was practical. Central Italy has plenty of good clay, and the local building stones, such as tufa, are soft and crumbly and do not always hold fine detail. Clay can be modelled by hand, pressed into moulds and painted, which suited the colourful decoration that Etruscans liked.
Terracotta was also the standard material for temple decoration. Etruscan temples were commonly built with a stone base and timber and mudbrick above, and they were crowned with clay: roof tiles, decorated antefixes (the upright ends of roof tiles), friezes, and statues set along the ridge of the roof. Most of this survives only in fragments, because the buildings collapsed or burned. Even so, the pieces recovered show a lively, sometimes dramatic style.
Terracotta sculpture exists in other ancient cultures too, from the Nok terracotta heads of West Africa to the figures of the Chinese tomb army, and the terracotta warrior craftsmanship of Qin China also involved moulds, hand finishing and paint. Etruscan clay work is separate from these traditions, but the shared material means that similar problems had to be solved, such as keeping thick forms from cracking in the kiln.
The Apollo of Veii
The Apollo of Veii is one of the most admired Etruscan statues. It comes from the Portonaccio sanctuary at Veii, a city just north of Rome, and is usually dated to around 510 to 490 BCE. The figure was part of a group of terracotta statues that stood on the ridge of the temple roof. Other pieces from the group include Hercules, a figure often identified as Hermes, and a goddess carrying a child, and they seem to show a mythological episode involving Apollo and Hercules. The exact reading of the scene is still discussed.
The statue is a bit more than life-size. Apollo strides forward with a firm, energetic movement, his drapery pressed close to the body, and he wears the “archaic smile” typical of Greek and Etruscan work of this period. Compared with Greek statues of the same time, which are often calm and balanced, the Veii figures feel more dynamic. Traces of paint show that the group was once brightly coloured.
The group is traditionally linked with Vulca of Veii, a sculptor named by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder. According to Roman tradition, the last kings of Rome, the so-called Tarquin kings, asked Vulca to make the cult statue of Jupiter for the great temple on the Capitoline hill. Scholars are cautious about attaching Vulca’s name to any surviving piece, since ancient sources are late and the attribution cannot be proved. The Apollo is better described as belonging to the workshop tradition associated with his name.
The Sarcophagus of the Spouses
The Sarcophagus of the Spouses is the best-known Etruscan funerary sculpture. It comes from the Banditaccia cemetery at Cerveteri and dates to about 520 BCE. A second, closely related sarcophagus, the Campana sarcophagus, is in the Louvre. The Cerveteri example is in the National Etruscan Museum at Villa Giulia in Rome.
The piece is a large terracotta chest with a lid in the form of a couple reclining on a banqueting couch, as if at a feast. The man leans on his elbow with an arm around the woman, and both have long braids, smiling faces and expressive hands, which probably once held objects such as an egg or a perfume flask (the objects are lost, so this is conjecture based on gestures). Despite the name, scholars do not know whether the figures show a married couple, and some have suggested other relationships, but the husband-and-wife reading is most common.
Many people notice that the woman reclines beside the man, which would have been unusual in a Greek dining scene. The sarcophagus is an important piece of evidence for the social position of Etruscan women, though a funerary image is not a legal record. Inside, the chest probably held cremated remains, though the contents of the examples that survive are not always documented.
How such figures were made
A statue of this size cannot be fired as a solid lump. Large terracotta figures were built hollow, with walls kept fairly even in thickness so that the clay dried and fired without cracking. They were usually made in sections, with separate parts for the head, torso, limbs and base, which were joined before or after firing. Details were added by hand, and some sections may have been shaped with the help of moulds. The Sarcophagus of the Spouses was assembled from several pieces. The surface was often covered with a slip of fine clay and painted in mineral pigments.
Since firing a very large piece was risky, successful works imply skilled workshops with big kilns and experienced potters. This is one reason why historians connect the roof statues of Veii with a highly organized tradition, and why a sculptor like Vulca could gain a lasting reputation.
Other terracotta works
The terracotta tradition is wide.
- The Winged Horses of Tarquinia are a large relief from the Ara della Regina temple, usually dated to the 4th century BCE.
- Cinerary urns made in places such as Chiusi, Volterra and Perugia in the Hellenistic period often have a reclining figure on the lid and a relief scene on the chest, and they were made in clay, stone or alabaster.
- Sarcophagi with portrait-like lids, such as the one of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa from Chiusi (2nd century BCE), now in the British Museum, show a woman reclining on a cushion with jewellery and a mirror.
- Votive figures, small offerings of heads, bodies, animals or body parts, were left at sanctuaries in large numbers.
Etruscan artists also worked in bronze, and some of the finest cast statues come from the same period, but those belong to a separate technical tradition.
Influence on Rome
The ties between Etruscan and Roman sculpture were close. In the 6th century BCE Rome was not far from Veii and shared a common environment of temple building. Roman writers recalled that early Roman temples carried clay statues, and that the Capitoline temple was decorated by Etruscan craftsmen. After the Roman expansion into Etruria, Etruscan statues were also taken to Rome. Pliny reports that thousands of statues were removed from the city of Volsinii after it fell in 264 BCE, although the figure should be treated with caution.
What we still do not know
The title says “mysterious,” and some points really are uncertain. We do not know the names of most artists, we cannot always be sure which myth a scene shows, and many pieces came out of old excavations or the antiquities market with weak records. Even so, careful study of workshop techniques, painted surfaces and findspots continues to refine the picture, and the outline is clear: the Etruscans were skilled and confident modellers of clay who gave their gods, and their dead, a vivid presence.