215 - Etruscan head, 3rd century B.C.

Etruscan head, 3rd century B.C. Terracotta. Measurements: 21 cm high. Provenance: Family bequest of Ramon Martí Alsina and Ricard Martí Aguiló. An archaeological collection assembled beginning in the 1950s by successive generations of the family through acquisitions at European galleries and auction houses. Terracotta head depicting a woman with an idealized face, her hair falling in regular strands over her forehead and on both sides of her neck, wearing a diadem decorated with stylized plant motifs rendered through incisions. This is an example of the sculptural art of Etruscan culture, which even in antiquity was shrouded in an aura of mystery; even their Greek contemporaries were intrigued by the sudden emergence of this people as a maritime and commercial power—an ancient people who, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, “resemble no other in their language and customs.”