Antefix in the Form of a Maiden (late 500s–early 400s BCE): Art, History and Details

Antefix in the Form of a Maiden (late 500s–early 400s BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Antefix in the Form of a Maiden
• Date: late 500s–early 400s BCE
• Culture: Etruscan
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: Painted terracotta
• Dimensions: height: 21.9 cm (8 5/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Etruscan
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 2024.56

A detail from the museum

Much Etruscan architectural sculpture was molded terracotta rather than carved stone.

Collection credit

Gift of Barbara S. Robinson and Family

Further reading listed by the museum

• Antiquarium, Ltd. Myth and Majesty: Deities and Dignitaries of the Ancient World. New York, N.Y.: Antiquarium, 1992.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.