Sarcophagus of the spouses

Attribution:

Key Dates

510

This Etruscan sarcophagus was created in Cisra/Caere (modern Cerveteri) around 520-510 bc. It was discovered by Campana at the necropolis in Cerveteri in 1845, and was bought from the sale of his effects by Napoleon III in 1861.

Key People

Giampietro Campana was general director of the Monte di Pieta bank, and used his wealth to amass a great collection of antiquities, expanding his holdings further by a second career as an amateur archaeologist. He was later convicted of embezzlement and his collection was confiscated by the Papal States' government, and sold off to major museums.

This sarcophagus shows an Etruscan man and his wife reclining on a couch, as at a banquet, embracing. (In Etruscan culture, both men and women attended feasts, something that shocked the Greeks who were used to male-only symposia.) She pours perfume from an alabastron into his hand, an action associated with funerary rites, and it's possible that her left hand originally held a pomegranate, symbol of eternal life. While the large size of the artefact suggests it was a sarcophagus, it might also have been a large cinerary urn - both inhumation and cremation were used by the Etruscans. There is only one other known example of such a sarcophagus, at the Villa Giulia museum in Rome. The sculpture shows clear influence from Ionian, Archaic Greek models, with the 'archaic smile', and relatively stylised treatment. It was made in terracotta, a particularly popular material in southern Etruria where there was little stone suitable for carving. Originally, it was brightly painted, though this has faded over the years.

Origin & Collection

Discovered at:

Banditaccia Necropolis, Cerveteri

On display at:

The Louvre

Additional information on display location:

Room 18 - Etruria 1

Reference Number:

Cp 5194

Physical properties

Width:

194.00cm