Cleveland Museum of Art

Antefix in the Form of a Maiden

Date

late 500s–early 400s BCE

Medium

Painted terracotta

Culture

Etruscan

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Staring out with almond-shaped eyes and enigmatic smile, this brightly painted female head hides a rounded back made to serve an important function. She is a molded terracotta antefix, made to cap an open-ended roof tile along the sloping edge of a wooden building. Depending on the size of the structure it adorned, this antefix may have sat alongside dozens of others, likely all similar in form and painted decoration, and perhaps accompanied by additional polychrome architectural sculpture. Sometimes identified as maenads, the female followers of Dionysos (Etruscan Fufluns ), such figures might also be nymphs or anonymous maidens. Much Etruscan architectural sculpture was molded terracotta rather than carved stone.

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