LOT 0150

Etruscan Bronze Lion Head

CENTRAL ITALY, LATE 6TH CENTURY B.C.

6 7/8 in. (1.11 kg total, 17.5 cm including stand).

A decorative fitting with roaring mouth and protruding fangs and tongue, the whiskers depicted in raised radiating ridges, with lidded, elongated almond-shaped eyes and small, round ears; mounted on a custom-made display stand.

with Christie’s, New York, 8 June 2001, no.58.
Donati collection, Lugano, prior to 1982.
Collection of Banca della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, prior to 1986.
Formerly in the Bourgknecht collection, Switzerland.

Accompanied by Art Loss certificate no.S00123227.

Testimonianze d’arte Etrusca in collezioni private Ticinesi, collection of Banca della Svizzera Italiana, 1986, p.31, no.7.2, illus.

Cf. Curtis, D., 'The Barberini Tomb' in Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, 1925, Vol. 5 (1925), pp. 9-52, pl.30, for a similar head of a lion; Canciani, F., and Von Hase, F.W., La tomba Bernardini di Palestrina, Rome, 1979, p.56, no.67; p.57, no.69, for parallels; Jucker, I., Italy of the Etruscans, The Israel Museum in Jerusalem, pp.290-291, no.387, for a head of a lion.

This head was probably, as was the parallel head of the Barberini Tomb, originally attached to a magnificent bronze cauldron. These large cauldrons of hammered bronze were realised with heads and necks of two lions and two gryphons attached to the rim. The cauldrons were spherical in form and rested on a stand.