Getty Museum

Appliqués for a funeral couch (358)

Date

150–50 B.C.

Medium

Bone and ivory

Culture

Etruscan or Italic

Department

Implements

Institution

Getty Museum

A group of 358 fragments of relief figures, decorative friezes, and plain veneers represent bone appliques, which were attached to the fulcra, frame, and legs of a funeral couch. Among the elements present are the head of a lynx with a pointed vertical ear, curved side pieces, and several medallions forming a fulcrum. A low relief frieze of putti raising garlands with masks, and several segments of egg and dart relief may have decorated the horizontal frame of the couch, or a separate wood casket. Several fragments illustrate a military theme, and include oval Celtic-type shields with a central boss, torsos of figures wearing a round-tipped scabbard slung across the chest, and trophies of muscle cuirasses mounted on poles, some of which are held up by a hand. The legs of the couch are formed by a series of lathe-turned cylindrical bone spools, alternating with larger torus or bell-shaped elements. Trapezoidal bone plaques were attached to the curved sections of the legs. Groups of semi-draped males with the right arm bent across their midsection may be Bacchic figures, and formed part of the leg reliefs. A group of individual relief heads probably decorated the upper section of the leg or the horizontal frame below the fulcrum. They comprise two types: low relief heads, which are roughly disk-shaped (.122, .123); and the face of a putto with a poppy garland (.120). Two male heads in profile wear a helmet (.124, .125), and a third is bare-headed (.121). A high relief figure of a bearded, naked man crouches in the adlegatus position on a rocky ground, with one leg drawn up in front of his chest and arms bound behind his back. His position and anxious glance upward to his right identifies him as a captive (.126).

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