Collections (vol.

Journal of the History of Collections ) pp.

24 no. 3(2012)
pp. 379398

Plaguey things
The history and technical examination of two Etruscan bronze
statuettes in the Fitzwilliam Museum

Julie Dawson and Trevor Emmett

In 1946 the Fitzwilliam Museum purchased two striking bronze statuettes at auction in London. They
were said to be early fifth-century BC in date and of central Etruscan style. Almost immediately suspicion
was thrown upon them for their mythological and stylistic eccentricities and their obscure history. The
story of the purchase, the debate about the objects as recorded in correspondence in the Museums
archives and their history in the Museum to the present day is described. A technical study has been
undertaken, including examination of the manufacturing technique, analysis of the metal and patina:
details of the examinations undertaken and the analytical techniques used are presented in four
online appendices. The results are used to characterize the figures and place them within the context of
authentic and fake Etruscan copper alloy objects. It seems most likely that they were created in the late
nineteenth or early twentieth century. Finally, reasons why the Museum purchased the statuettes and why
it took so long to confirm their status are proposed.

ON May , the Fitzwilliam Museum purchased
two striking bronze statuettes (Fig. and online
Fig. a), described as the property of a nobleman,
from a sale at Sothebys, London.1 The National Art-
Collections Fund (NACF) gave , towards the sale
price of ,. The catalogue entry describes them as:
TWO BRONZE STATUETTES, one male, in. high overall, the
other female, in. high;2 the statuettes are of a similar
style and scale, and evidently belong together, each stands
on a thin plate of bronze set into a base with lead, a layer of
which remains under the bronze plate. The ne greenish
patina has been somewhat damaged by water and heat in a
bombing-raid, but is still very pleasing: in the same raid part
of the thunderbolt carried by the male gure was lost
(a photograph taken before the war shows the missing part),
and the disc on the head of the female was broken off; it has
been replaced with a slightly thicker stem; this stem is the
only restoration in either gure. The male gure bears on
his head an engraved coronet from which project seven rays;
the centre ve are zig-zag, whilst the outer one on each side
ends in a at spiral. He wears a cloak, and high boots; on
all these, ne patterns are engraved, and the pattern on
the boots incorporates a design of rays. In his right hand he
carries a thunderbolt, originally with three prongs. In
Etruscan religion, according to Pliny (Natural History , )
nine deities had the power to launch thunderbolts, and
lightning played a special part in the Etrusca disciplina.
The statuette represents the Etruscan supreme deity
Tinia god of the sky, identied with the Roman Jupiter,
who still survives under the name Tigna in Italian folk lore
as the god of thunder and lighting.
The female gure also wears an engraved coronet, from
which springs a disc, once silvered in front, and she carries
a torch in her right hand; she wears the Ionian chiton, with
a cloak covering both shoulders; the chiton is patterned
at the top edge and the cloak on both edges; her shoes
incorporate a pattern of crescents. This is the goddess Uni,
identied with the Roman Juno, who, as Juno Lucina, was
goddess of the moon and commonly carried a torch as her
attribute. Tinia and Uni formed, with Menerva (Minerva),
the celestial triad in the Etruscan Pantheon.
The statuettes are of central Etruscan style, probably that
of Vulci . . . Early th Century B.C. and important not only
from the neness of their style but also from their mythological
signicance. Found many years ago near Prato in Tuscany.
From around the eighth century BC until it was
assimilated into the Roman Empire in the first
century BC, the civilization of ancient Etruria existed
within an area of Italy bounded roughly by the River
Arno in the north and the River Tiber in the south
and stretching from the Apennine Mountains in the
east down to the west coast. The city of Prato, named
as the nd-spot for the Fitzwilliam gures, is close to
Florence.
There was a strong tradition of bronze working
carried out at workshops across Etruria, using all the
common techniques of manipulating and decorating

The Author
Authors2012. PublishedbybyOxford
.Published OxfordUniversity
UniversityPress.
Press.All
Allrights
rightsreserved.
reserved.
doi: 10.1093/jhc/fhr049 Advance Access publication 2 May 2012
doi:10.1093/jhc/fhr049
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 J U L I E D A W S O N AL
NRDH T R E V O R E M M E T T

Fig. . Female gure (GR..) and

male gure (GR..) photographed
soon after they were acquired by the
Fitzwilliam in . Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge.

sheet metal and of casting molten metal in moulds.
From the sixth century BC, the city of Vulci in
southern Etruria appears to have been an important
centre for the production of cast bronzes of distinctive
style.3
The Etrusca disciplina, referred to in the catalogue
entry, was the name given by the Romans to the doc-
trine and rituals which guided the Etruscans inter-
pretation of the will and behaviour of their gods.4
Thousands of votive gifts made principally from
stone, terracotta or bronze have been recovered from
sanctuaries all over Etruria. These votives include
representations both of particular divinities and of the
donors of gifts.
According to the sale catalogue, the closest parallels
for the gures bought by the Fitzwilliam, are two votive
statuettes found in at an open-air sanctuary
at Monte Acuto Ragazza (Monteguragazza) in the
Apennines and now housed in the Museo Civico
Archeologico, Bologna (Fig. ) and a gure from Isola
di Fano near Fossombrone, acquired in by the
Museo Archeologico, Florence (Fig. ).5

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 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM

Fig. . Bronze male gure (inv. no. Bo_) and female gure (inv. no. Bo_), from Monte Acuto Ragazza, Italy, both Ht. .
cm, c. - BC. Reproduced with permission from the Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna.

History th century B.C. Owing to certain circumstances which

The earliest record of the statuettes so far traced is an
enigmatic letter dated June from Felix Warre
of Sothebys to Bernard Ashmole, Professor of Clas-
sical Archaeology at University College London and
recently appointed Keeper of the Department of
Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum:
The owner of the two bronze statuettes came to see me
yesterday and showed them to me and said that you had
passed them as genuine, (presumably Etruscan) work of the
I need not trot out, it seems that if this pair of gures could
be sold the only way to deal with them would be to sell them
by private treaty. Mr. B. has put the thing in my hands to
try and negotiate. I understand that a pretty stiff price
is asked. Naturally the rst thought I have is to ask if the
Museum have [sic] any desire to become possessed of these
figures. Could you let me know if the authorities would
consider a purchase?6
No further documentation of the objects between
and the sale in has come to light, nor has the

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Fig. . Bronze male gure (inv. no. ) from Isola di Fano,
Italy, Ht. . cm, fth-century BC. Reproduced with permission
from the Museo Archeologico di Firenze.
pre-War photograph mentioned in the sale catalogue
entry. On May , two weeks before the auction,
the Honorary Keeper of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam,
Winifred Lamb, wrote to tell the Director, Louis
Clarke that she had just seen the bronzes at Sothebys
and that they were by far the most desirable things
in the sale but that she did not want to commit the
Museum to bidding for them until she had consulted
Sir John Fosdyke (Director of the British Museum)
and John Beazley (Professor of Classical Archaeology
at the University of Oxford).7 On the same day, she
visited Bernard Ashmole. It seems reasonable to
deduce from the letter he sent to her the next day that
she had expressed some concerns. Ashmole reassured
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her that he and Beazley had discussed the objects
and added I think he believes, as I do, that they are
perfectly all right.8 Ashmole also conrmed in this
letter that it was he who had written the passage on
the Etruscans for the Sothebys sale catalogue.
On May, the day after the sale, Sir Sydney
Cockerell, former Director of the Fitzwilliam
Museum, began his annual visit to his friend George
Spencer-Churchill (a collector of antiquities, in-
cluding Etruscan bronzes) at Northwick Park in
Gloucestershire.9 Cockerell was quick to relay to the
Fitzwilliam the gossip that he picked up there:
George Churchill says that Forrer of Spinks told him
that the story about injury in the blitz was pure inven-
tion and that a clumsy customer of his dropped one
of them and broke off the topknot, disclosing bright
copper George gathered that they came from a sus-
pect quarter and that Forrer doubted their authenti-
city. But they seem to have raised no suspicions in
Beazley or Ashmole.10 The topknot refers to the
disc on the females head, which had been repaired, as
noted in the catalogue.
No record of how this news was received in the
Fitzwilliam has been found. The statuettes were put
on show and were featured in the , and
editions of the Handbook and Guide to the Fitzwilliam
Museum and the Illustrated Survey published in
,11 but it is clear that seeds of doubt had been
sown. The gossip that Cockerell reported must
quickly have become well-known in trade and aca-
demic circles, even if it was not openly discussed. The
statuettes appeared in the NACF report for , but
this major purchase was never featured in the national
or local press and the pieces were never fully published
by the Museum.12
For Lamb it must have been a difcult and embar-
rassing experience. Although not so expensive or so
high-prole as the suspect Cretan goddess that she
had been instrumental in purchasing in , her
judgement had again been called into question.13 Also,
it must have been hard for her that the messenger of
the unwelcome rumour was Cockerell, whom she
loved and trusted. It has been noted that, after this
episode, she never bought another object for the
Museum in her remaining twelve years as Honorary
Keeper.14
In Lamb retired and the Museums first
full-time, professional curator, Richard Nicholls,
was appointed as Senior Assistant Keeper in the
382
 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
Department of Antiquities. Nichollss concern about
the status of the two Etruscan gures is recorded in
correspondence from to . In , he wrote that the doubts of the Museum had not been suf-
to Winifred Lamb telling her that Mrs Richardson
. . . believes Tinia and Uni to be forgeries and the case
against them seems almost unanswerably black.15
Emeline Hill Richardson had been researching
Etruscan votive bronzes in collections all over the
world since , work which culminated in her
comprehensive catalogue Etruscan Votive Bronzes:
Geometric, Orientalising, Archaic, nally published in
.16 (At the time of her death in she was list of others who had formed an opinion based on
working on the second volume on bronzes of the
Classical period.)17
The pieces were withdrawn from the new edition
of the Museums Handbook that was prepared in
, but they remained on display. Nicholls felt that,
because they had been bought with help from the
NACF, the Museum had been unduly reticent about
their status, but he was obliged to continue showing
the plaguey things, which has been done for some
time past under deliberately vague captions.18
In October , Dieter Ahrens of the Archolo-
gisches Seminar der Universitt Mnster wrote to
Nicholls expressing a long-standing interest in the
bronzes and asking permission to publish them.19 The
Professor of Classical Archaeology at Mnster,
Ludwig Budde, who had recently completed with
Nicholls a catalogue of the Fitzwilliams Greek and
Roman sculpture, had given Ahrens photographs of
the Etruscans. It seems that, at this point, both he and
Budde thought them genuine. Nicholls complied with
the request, but warned Ahrens of his own doubts
about their authenticity, because of their similarity to
the Monte Acuto Ragazza bronzes and because of
certain details of their clothing.20
Ahrens published the pieces as forgeries in
Pantheon in . He was concerned rstly that the
statuettes could not be classied mythologically and
was particularly troubled by the eccentric attributes.
He then carried out a detailed stylistic comparison
between these pieces and a wide range of comparable
Etruscan gures, focusing most particularly on the
two Monte Acuto Ragazza statuettes. He considered
the Fitzwilliam pieces to be worryingly unique and
concluded that they were probably late-nineteenth-
century fakes, sculpted by skilled artists who had a
good knowledge of original pieces and who had drawn
heavily on the recently discovered Monte Acuto
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ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM
Ragazza gures.21 He sent an offprint to the Museum,
prompting an indignant letter from Nicholls who felt
ciently acknowledged and pointing out to Ahrens that
a little caution was needed. He had been rash to con-
demn them without rst-hand examination since
technical evidence seems rather to support somewhat
different conclusions. Ahrens had listed scholars
(L. Banti, G. Caputo, S.Ferri. M. Pallottino)22 who
agreed with him (presumably from seeing the photo-
graphs only), while Nicholls in his letter gave his own
autopsy H.A. Cahn: wholly genuine; G. Ortiz: part
genuine, part false; Mrs E. Richardson: doubtful
about them, but unwilling to condemn them outright
(which slightly contradicts what he had written to
Winifred Lamb about Richardson).23
However, on reection, Nicholls was rather
relieved to have the Ahrens expos as it gave him
the justification he needed to take the pieces off
display in .24 He wrote a conciliatory letter explain-
ing that the principal reason for caution was that it
was very difcult indeed to fault the patina of either
the lead or the bronze. The latter is very different
from the easily induced kind of powdery patina
which one associates with the nest Etruscan bronze
forgeries.25
He notes that the Fitzwilliam would be carrying
out detailed examination for a bronzes catalogue (in a
year or twos time) but that he is provisionally
inclined to agree that stylistic abnormalities outweigh
technical credibility, especially the drapery of Tinia
front and back drapery from different garments for
which plausible prototypes exist. Additionally, he
agrees that the attributes are problematic, although he
thinks the patinas suggest that these are ancient.
The catalogue of bronzes was never written and it
appears that no further technical examination was
undertaken. The pieces had already been ejected from
the Handbook and now quietly disappeared from
public view. This might perhaps have been the end of
the story, but the correspondence shows that there
was continuing sporadic interest and doubt about
their status. Throughout the rst half of Nicholls
was in correspondence with Quentin Maule, Associate
Professor of Art at Fordham University, New York,
who was studying what he called a rather large series
of similar works that I have located in collections in
Europe and America.26
383
 J U L I E D A W S O N AL
Maule subsequently visited to examine the bronzes,
but was not convinced one way or the other about
their authenticity and later wrote to solicit more
information about the circumstances of their purchase.
He states that, personally, he was not swayed by
Ahrenss article, such there was of it when all the
dross was cleared away. Also, I am disturbed by the
current rage for discrediting every other bronze that
one comes across.27 He and Nicholls continued to
discuss the bronzes, but the correspondence fades out
without any clear resolution and Maule did not
include them in his article The Monteguragazza Style
that was nally published in in Studi Etruschi.28
However, scholars continued to be aware of their
existence. In Professor Poul Jrgen Riis who
had recently completed a book on archaic bronzes
from Vulci,29 wrote to Eleni Vassilika, Keeper of
Antiquities from to , asking whether the
current official opinion [is] that they are genuine
or fakes? He proposed that, if ancient, they were
probably North Etruscan imitations of Vulcian
works.30 Vassilika herself was interested in the pieces.
In she included them in a small exhibition in
the Fitzwilliam, Ancient Imitations: Forgeries and
Facsimiles from Antiquity, as objects of dubious
reputation, but which an analytical study might one
day rehabilitate.31 She instigated the technical study
that was begun in late and which continued,
after a long interruption, in -. ankle, causing the still-molten reservoir of metal in
Technical study
Examination using stereo microscopy, X and gamma
radiography and some analyses were undertaken in
-, including identication of the metal of the
gures; identication of the corrosion products
(patina) was carried out in (see online Appendices
- for details of examination and analytical tech-
niques). The technical study consists of a description
of the structure and surface of the objects, followed by
the results of the analyses. The Fitzwilliam statuettes
are then discussed in relation to the technological
features, metal composition and corrosion products
that might be expected of fth-century BC Etruscan
objects.
Structure and surface features of the statuettes
The Fitzwilliam gures have each been made in one
piece by the direct lost-wax casting method. In this
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process the sculptor rst creates a very detailed wax
model. To this he attaches a wax cup and rods of wax
(sprues) to provide channels through which later the
molten metal will run. A refractory clay mould is built
up around this wax structure, leaving the top of the
wax cup exposed. The mould is inverted and baked to
harden the mould and melt the wax, which is poured
out, leaving a cavity. The mould is turned upright and
the cavity (created by the loss of the wax model,
sprues and wax cup) is lled with molten metal. After
cooling, the mould is broken open so that the metal
version of the wax model can be retrieved. The sprues
and cup (now all solid metal) are sawn off and the
statuette is cleaned. Flaws on the surface may be dis-
guised with patches or plugs of metal and tooling may
enhance surface decorative details that were made in
the wax model or may be used to add new details.32
Externally, the Fitzwilliam gures are complete
except for a small casting aw on the torso of the male
under the upper right arm and a similar, but larger,
hole, where the bottom of the drapery abuts the front
of the females right ankle. The radiographs show that
they are made of solid metal, with considerable por-
osity in the metal at the bottom of the drapery of both
gures narrowing into a channel which extends up
into the chest of each (Fig. ). These features suggest
that the pieces were cast upside down shrinkage has
occurred as the molten metal solidied rst at the
the body to pull apart as a vacuum was formed, cre-
ating linear porosity. The tear visible at the waist of
both gures also indicates tension between two partial
reservoirs (upper body and lower body) as the metal
contracted. This feature also may indicate that the g-
ures were cast through the feet and with no secondary
feed to the body.33
On the radiographs, several round holes with a
bullet shaped section are visible on the upper parts
of the left foot of each gure, in the back of the males
left elbow and on the upper body of both gures.
These are probably the sites of casting aws from
trapped air which would have left small holes in the
surface of the metal. The holes appear to have been
drilled out and each plugged with a small piece of
metal. On the surface of the pieces, these repairs are
completely hidden by the incised decoration and the
patina (Fig. ).
Similar in size and shape are the holes which take
the rays of the male gures headdress and the tang of
384
 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM

Fig. . Gamma-radiograph of female

(GR..) on left and male
(GR..) on right. Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge.

the disc from the females head, suggesting that they
were all drilled out at the same time and probably
with the same drill bit (Fig. ); there is one larger
diameter drill hole in the females left foot (see Fig. ).
The incised decoration on the clothing, shoes and
headdresses of the gures appears to have been made
by a combination of chasing and the use of punches to
create the circles and dots that make up much of the
design. In places it is completely lled with compact
corrosion products (see Fig. and Fig. ). It is not
possible to say with condence how much of this
decoration was carried out on the wax model and how
much is the result of cold-working on the nished
metal gure.
The patina on both statuettes is broadly similar.
Over the metal surface, there is a thin, patchy skin of
red corrosion product under a uniform, predomin-
antly black and green patina, with yellowish salts in
areas of relief, such as the folds of the drapery. There
are patches of paler green and turquoise corrosion
products especially on the heads. The surfaces have
been highly polished, but do not appear to have been

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Fig. . Feet of female (GR..) and X-radiograph of feet. The
arrows mark the drilled, plugged holes. Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge.
Fig. . X-radiograph of drilled holes with inserted rays in coronet
of male (GR..) Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
waxed or lacquered (there is no uorescence under
ultraviolet light). In places, the upper layers of corro-
sion product have aked away partially or completely,
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but it is generally fairly coherent and adherent.
Seen in cross-section, the black/green patina con-
sists of two extremely thin (each less than . mm),
even, dense layers. On both gures there are many
patches where the corrosion products look like broken
bubbles. This is especially true around the hair-line
and in some folds of drapery and it is more pro-
nounced on the female (Fig. ). These bubbly corro-
sion products are generally pale green/brown, softer
and more powdery than the rest of the surface. There
is no signicant loss of detail or other surface damage
or abrasion on either gure.
Each gure is attached to a lead sheet base, which is
covered by a thin layer of copper alloy. Both metal
components are partially mineralized. The lead on
each base has a curved, highly corroded edge on the
proper right side of the gure. However, the proper
left side of each base has a modern cut edge. Although
these do not quite t together, it seems likely that the
two bases are made from one attish circular piece
(see online Fig. a). The heels of both gures are
slightly recessed into the bases and may be attached
with lead solder. There are also remains of an adhe-
sive around the junction of the feet with the base.
The seven rays of the males coronet are separate,
apparently just pushed into the drilled holes in the
headdress. They are highly mineralized (especially
the spiral ends) but are not corroded into the holes
and are easily removed.
A hole through the males right st appears to be
part of the original casting. Wedged in the bottom of
the hole is a piece of oval-section copper alloy rod
( mm long), loosely held in by pale green powdery
corrosion products. The separate thunderbolt
sits loosely and limply in the hole above this. The
thunderbolt has a semi-circular section with anges at
the sides. It has a very different appearance and no
convincing physical connection to the rod fragment.
This suggests that the gure may originally have held
some other object in his hand, of which the rod is the
surviving fragment. In contradiction of the assertion in
the sale catalogue that the prongs of the thunderbolt
were broken off in a bombing raid, none of the break
edges appears to be recent.
The tang of the at disc ts into a hole on the
females headdress. This hole has the same drilled-
out prole and is a similar size to those previously
described. The disc was already detached when exam-
ined by the rst author in . Presumably, this was
386
 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM

Fig. . Detail of surface on proper

right side (back) of females head
(GR..) Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge.

the result of an unrecorded accident some time after
the pieces were rst photographed in the Museum
(see Fig. ). There is a very clean, curved cut across
the tang and a thick ring of solder applied to hold the
disc to the tang and to the headdress. This is the
repair referred to in the sale catalogue. It is not pos-
sible to establish whether that breakage had happened
in a bombing raid, as stated in the catalogue entry, or
was caused by the clumsy customer referred to by
Cockerell. Possibly the broken edges of the tang were
tidied up and shaped (to make a bigger area of contact
between the parts) before the solder repair was made.
The metal is harder and paler than that of the gure
and the lower parts of the disc are very well preserved
with the front surface a highly polished watery grey/
black. However, the top of the disc is broken and
mineralized, dotted with lumps of warty green and
red corrosion products.

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The other detachable attributes (the males thun-
derbolt and rays) and the bases of both gures also
have harder, more heterogeneous crusts of corrosion
products than the gures.
Analysis of the metals
described as a leaded brass34. The composition is very
similar for both gures, especially with regard to the
trace elements of nickel and iron (and also manganese
and possibly arsenic, both of which were detected
only with the PXRF). The close similarity suggests that
they were probably made at the same time from the
same batch of alloy.

Statuettes Bases and attributes

Initially, chemical analysis of the alloy was per-
formed, using inductively-coupled plasma optical
emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) on drillings (. mg
to . mg) obtained from two sample sites on the
thickest parts of each casting. The samples were
taken from a depth of - mm into the metal to
ensure that they were free from corrosion products
and other surface deterioration effects. The results
were conrmed (but no extra information obtained)
by examination of the drillings with scanning elec-
tron microscopy energy-dispersive X-ray analysis
(SEM-EDX). To extend the number of analytical sites
A small fragment of metal was cut from the lead base
of the male and from the copper-alloy sheet which
overlies the base. The inner, uncorroded surface from
each fragment was examined with SEM-EDX. The
results indicated that the base is composed of about
% lead with minor amounts of tin and iron and the
copper-alloy sheet of about % copper with about
% tin and other minor elements.
It was not possible to sample the thunderbolt or
rays of the males headdress, nor the disc of the
females headdress. However, examination by SEM-
EDX of the front surface of the disc indicates that it is

(a further ve on GR.. and three on GR..),
surface analysis was performed using a portable
X -ray uorescence spectrometer (PXRF), which also
conrmed the ndings.
Table shows that the gures are made of an alloy
composed of copper, lead, tin and zinc. The high
percentage of zinc means that the alloys could be
tinned, not silvered (as the Sothebys catalogue entry
stated). This accounts for the lustrous grey appear-
ance. Surface analysis with PXRF suggests that the
underlying metal is a leaded bronze with a small
amount of zinc present; traces of arsenic and silicon
were also detected. The thunderbolt was subjected to
PXRF and found to be a leaded bronze with trace
amounts of arsenic, iron, and nickel (no manganese or
zinc): see online Appendix .

Table . Elemental composition of the copper alloy of the

Etruscan statuettes. Analyses by dissolution ICP-OES. Analysis of the corrosion products (patina)
Figures in weight per cent, normalized to %
indicates an element present but below its quantiable Statuettes
limit. See online Appendix for details.
The phase composition of the surface corrosion products
Element GR.. (Male) GR.. (Female) was determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD): see Table .

Copper . . Bases and attributes

Lead . . XRD analysis of corrosion products of the disc con-
Tin . . rmed atacamite, paratacamite, malachite and cerus-
Zinc . .
site, with possible belloite and cuprite but no obvious
Silver
Iron . . tin salts. The ray sample yielded denite cuprite only,
Silicon . . though other phases may be present. On the bases,
Nickel . . the salts cerussite, anglesite (lead sulphate, PbSO)
Arsenic and possibly some lead oxides were detected on
Sulphur . the lead component; atacamite, malachite, gypsum
Phosphorous
(CaSO.HO) and quartz (SiO) on the overlying
Aluminium .
copper alloy sheet.

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 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM

Table . Phase composition (by XRD) of corrosion product samples from Etruscan statuettes. X (conrmed present),
P (possibly present), (not detected). See online Appendix for details.

Phase name Composition GR.. GR.. Notes

Atacamite CuCl(OH) X X
Belloite Cu(OH)Cl P P
Botallackite CuCl(OH) X X polymorph of atacamite
Paratacamite Cu(Cu,Zn)Cl(OH) X P always the zincian variety
Cuprite CuO X X
Tenorite CuO P X indicates heat treatment
Malachite Cu(CO)(OH) X
Cerussite PbCO P
Lanarkite Pb(SO)O X

Characterization of the Fitzwilliam statuettes
Composition of Etruscan copper alloys and of the
Fitzwilliam statuettes
Through the analysis of Etruscan copper-alloy objects
from the seventh to second centuries BC in the British
Museum and a review of other published results (some
objects in total), Paul Craddock rst established
a range and possible development of alloys used by
Etruscan craftsmen. For cast objects such as statu-
ettes, this was a leaded tin bronze.35
The place of copper-zinc alloys (such as brass and
gunmetal) in the chronology of alloy development is
still a confusing and contentious issue. The produc-
tion of copper-zinc alloy is a much more complicated
and difcult process than the production of tin
bronze. Copper ores often contain some zinc, but at
the temperatures required for smelting these ores (at
least C), zinc volatilizes and escapes in the waste
gases. Alloys made in this way would therefore be
expected to contain only very minor amounts of zinc.
A very small number of copper-zinc alloy objects
with higher contents of zinc (around % %)
dated from the third to rst millennium BC has been
found at sites from India to the Aegean. There has
been recent research into the treatment of zinc-rich
copper ores that would have enabled the production
of a natural alloy before the technological develop-
ments in the later part of the rst millennium BC that
allowed the direct use of zinc ores to make brass.36
Craddock and Eckstein note that from about BC
literary references to oreichalkos, the Greek word that
eventually came to mean brass,37 suggest that the alloy
was coming into more common use. However, from
analytical results obtained, it seems that the use of
alloys containing more than a trace of zinc in the Greek
and Roman world became common only from around
the rst century BC. They point out that most of the
analytical work undertaken has been on prestigious
art metalwork in the collections of Western museums
and that analysis of small, everyday metalwork from
well-dated excavations may change this picture.38
Even so, it is the so-called art metalwork group, to
which the Fitzwilliam gures must be compared. As
part of a study in which genuine and fake Etruscan
copper alloy statuettes were examined by the tech-
nique of neutron resonance capture analysis, Postma
et al. looked at the results of the analyses of
Etruscan, Italic and Sardinian copper alloy objects
from the British Museum published by Craddock in
the s. Of these, contained less than .%
zinc, nine contained .% % zinc and only six had
more than % zinc. Of these six, four are considered
of doubtful authenticity or have considerable repairs.39
The brass statuette (.% zinc) of a naked youth
(inv. no. ,.) published by Craddock in
as Etruscan third- to second-century BC, was
proved in to be a Renaissance gure.40 The brass
base (.% zinc) of a fth-century BC Etruscan
bronze gure of a boxer (inv. no. ,.),
acquired by the British Museum from the antiquities
dealer Alessandro Castellani in , does not appear
to be part of the original casting and is now considered
most likely to a nineteenth-century replacement.41
Craddocks most recent published conclusion on
the subject is still that the presence of more than
trace amounts of zinc in a copper alloy purporting to
be more than about , years old should normally
be regarded as highly suspicious and the higher the
zinc content the more unlikely the authenticity of the

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 J U L I E D A W S O N AL
metal.42 It seems extremely unlikely that statuettes
nearly cm tall, made of solid cast brass containing
% % zinc could be genuine fth-century BC
Etruscan objects.
Corrosion products (patina)
In an atmosphere containing oxygen and moisture,
the surface of a copper alloy object will begin to cor-
rode naturally, usually forming rst a patina of red
copper I oxide (cuprite). In a typical burial environ-
ment, the corrosion process will continue as a com-
bination of groundwater and oxygen attack the
object. Copper dissolves along the grain boundaries
of the metal leading to the formation of more cuprite
beneath the original surface. The cuprite is attacked
by other chemicals such as chlorides or carbon di-
oxide that are dissolved in the groundwater. This
leads to the formation of the familiar crusts of green
salts, principally hydroxycarbonates (usually mal-
achite) and hydroxychlorides (usually atacamite and
paratacamite). Salts of other metals in the alloy, such
as the lead carbonate, cerrusite, or the tin oxide, cas-
siterite, may also form. These layers are often com-
pact and strongly adhered to the metal substrate
because of the intergranular corrosion. Where local
conditions in the burial environment have been
particularly aggressive, irregular warty patches of
corrosion product may develop and, because the
metal is leaching out into the corrosion product
crust, the metal will look diminished, rough and
pitted if the corrosion salts are removed and a metal
surface exposed.
The creation of articially induced patina on copper
alloy objects has a long history, both for the formation
of artistic effects and also for the purpose of faking
corroded ancient surfaces. Replicating the results of
long burial in a visually and chemically convincing
manner is generally acknowledged to be extremely
difcult. It is fairly straightforward to produce a thin
cuprite surface overlain by some of the minerals found
in naturally formed corrosion products, but without
the intergranular corrosion, these layers are often
powdery or aky and, in general, poorly adhered to
the metal. The most convincing surfaces are created
by attacking the metal with chemicals which produce
salts (such as nitrates and sulphides and sulphates)
that are visually suitable, but chemically unlikely on
an archaeological copper alloy and thus easily detected
by analysis.43
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NRDH T R E V O R E M M E T T
The surface on the Fitzwilliams two Etruscans as
already noted, is one of the principal reasons that
scholars were unwilling to condemn them outright as
forgeries. This patina gave even the highly sceptical
Nicholls pause for thought. The surfaces have some
of the visual characteristics of a naturally formed
patina, with considerable variation in texture and
colour. In some places, they are attached tenaciously
to the metal. The pieces have been highly polished, a
process which imparts an appearance of unnatural
uniformity, but which nonetheless is similar to the
effect seen on naturally formed corrosion products
that have been cleaned back mechanically to a thin
patina and highly polished. This can be seen, for
example, on a female gure on loan to the Fitzwilliam
from the Lewis collection, Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge (Fig. ).44
Analysis did not reveal any of the salts, noted
above, that have been taken as the most obvious indi-
cators of an induced surface. However, the red cuprite
is extremely patchy and, in addition to cuprite, the
black copper II oxide, tenorite, was found on both
gures. This is uncommon in naturally formed corro-
sion products. It is usually associated with the metal
having been heated very strongly and, when found in
combination with cuprite, as on the Fitzwilliam
figures, may indicate use of one of the popular
nineteenth-century methods of bronzing a copper
alloy object as part of the patination process.45 How-
ever, the story of heat damage in a bombing raid must
also be borne in mind as a possible explanation.
The sheer homogeneity and uniform thickness of
the layers of darker salts are also suggestive of induced
deposition over a relatively short timescale and the
powdery broken bubbles of parts of the surface are
more suggestive of this type of patina, than of naturally-
formed corrosion product layers. Arthur Hiorns, in
his comprehensive handbook Metal-Colouring and
Bronzing, rst published in , describes in detail
several methods for creating a type of antique patina
varying in tone from dark brownish-black to dark
greenish-black, also from yellowish-green to bluish-
green; and these different shades being capable of
production in different parts of the same article, a
great variety of shades may be generated. Thus a dark
greenish-black may be formed on the groundwork,
with a bluish- or yellowish-green on the parts which
are in high relief.46 Some of these methods attempt
to replicate the natural corrosion process, with the
390
 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
Fig. . Figure of a woman holding a ower (Fitzwilliam Museum,
Loan Ant.., on loan from Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge). Made in Etruria. Found in Rusellae, Etruria,
Ht. cm, fth-century BC. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
intention of creating the correct mix of salts on the
surface. Hiorns stresses that the more slowly this
process is carried out, the greater is the beauty,
natural appearance and resilience of the patina that
is formed.47 Repeated polishing during the process
would help compact and consolidate the new patina.
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ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM
The principal salt, found in every sample from
the surface of either figure, is atacamite (and its
polymorph botallackite). The hydroxycarbonate
malachite however is completely absent from samples
from the female gure and is present in only two
samples from the male gure. This alone could be an
indicator that the corrosion crusts on these objects
have not formed over a long period in a burial envir-
onment. In the context of an articially induced
patina, the absence may reect the difculty of getting
this manufactured salt to cohere well.48
Although much of the patina akes fairly easily,
there are some areas of greater coherence and ten-
acity, where there seems to be a greater depth of cor-
rosion product. Craddock, describing manufactured
patina on Chinese bronzes notes that after even as
little as ve years, aggressive chemicals that would
have been used may have continued to attack the
metal, gradually creating some degree of the natural
corrosion phenomenon.49 On the Fitzwilliam pieces,
which have a known history of at least seventy years,
this may be a factor in the current state of the patina.
The complex assemblages of compounds detected by
XRD probably reect such a process because they are
unlikely to form naturally and slowly over a long
period (more than , years).
Perhaps the most striking feature of the phase
assemblages is the general absence of zinc-bearing
compounds. The XRD methodology employed undoubt-
edly has rather poor detection limits (probably >
weight per cent in most instances) so the zinc-bearing
phases may simply not be observed. However, parata-
camite requires a signicant amount of Zn (> atomic
per cent) to stabilize its structure. At very high zinc
contents the mineral becomes herbertsmithite
(CuZn(OH)Cl), for which there is some (but not
compelling) evidence in these samples. It is therefore
probable that paratacamite (and perhaps minor her-
bertsmithite) represent the main zinc-bearing phase
in these patinas.50
The corrosion products on the disc are more con-
vincingly natural, both in composition and morph-
ology. It appears that this and possibly the other
attributes and the bases could be ancient and exca-
vated, if not necessarily Etruscan. The presence of
gypsum on the upper surface of the base may be
related to disguising make-up where the feet are
joined to the base. There is something similar over the
solder repair to the headdress disc.
391
 J U L I E D A W S O N AL
Technical features
Technologically, the pieces are very accomplished and
the method of manufacture, direct lost wax-casting, is
the technique that would have been employed by an
Etruscan craftsman in the fth century BC. Although
it is technically difcult to achieve and expensive in
terms of the amount of metal used, there are many
examples of Etruscan bronze sculpture of equivalent
size that have been reported as solid cast (although it
is not clear in most instances whether this has been
conrmed by radiography).51 However, as previously
suggested, given the extreme rarity of brass at this
period, it is unlikely that large gures would have
been cast solid in this material. Instead, the hollow
lost-wax technique would have been used. In this
method, the wax model is shaped around a core of
clay. The molten metal then forms a thin skin rather
than a solid gure and thus a hollow sculpture is
made, requiring far less metal.
Throughout the Greek and Roman world, the
method of disguising casting aws was to chisel out a
hole around the aw and insert a rectangular patch of
metal. If skilfully done, such patches can be almost
invisible when rst made, but as the surface corrodes,
they often become more pronounced. The aws on
the Fitzwilliam gures appear to have been drilled out
and plugged, a much later technique.52 The patina
hides them completely and the incised decoration that
crosses the plugs on the feet shows no sign of discon-
tinuity. These factors would suggest that the plugs
are contemporary with the manufacture of the gures.
The lead and copper alloy bases are rather curious.
Many ancient statuettes were cast upside-down and
had sprues rising from the heels as part of the system
for feeding the molten metal into the mould. There
are several examples of Etruscan votive bronzes on
which these sprues were originally left in place to
provide tangs for mounting the object into a stone
base. Molten lead was poured into the hole around the
tangs, making a conical plug.53 These plugs exist
partially on the two Monte Acuto Ragazza statuettes
and several others, including the gure of a young
man in the British Museum (inv. no. ,.:54 articial patination applied and the strange, possibly
see online Fig. a). Often the lead plugs were partly
disguised by museum mounts, as on the British Mu-
seum example shown in a photo published in
(online Fig. b) and as the Bologna gures are now.55
The thin bases to which the at-footed Fitzwilliam
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NRDH T R E V O R E M M E T T
gures are attached, may simply be a misunderstand-
ing of the true nature of original bases.
Conclusions of technical study
The alloy composition, state of the metal surface,
technical features and applied patina all appear to rule
out a fth-century BC Etruscan origin for the Fitzwilliam
gures. Their close resemblance to Etruscan votive
bronzes found and received into public collections in
Italy in the s, the almost identical alloy compos-
ition in two large objects, the modern treatment of
casting aws that seems to be contemporary with the
gures before they acquired any surface patina: all
these features make it most likely that the Fitzwilliam
figures are stylistically eccentric, but technically
accomplished, late nineteenth- or early twentieth-
century forgeries. The attributes appear to be older
objects that were added to embellish the sculptures
and, by their condition, add to the aura of antiquity.It
is, of course, possible that the statuettes were made
simply as pleasing imitations or reections of extraor-
dinary pieces that were in the public eye in the late
nineteenth century,56 and only became authentic
fth-century BC objects as they began to pass through
the market.
Are there any other plausible origins for these
pieces? Both Horace ( BC BC) and Pliny the Elder
(AD -) noted that bronze statuettes from Etruria
were popular with Roman collectors.57 Rare examples
exist of objects thought to be Roman copper-alloy g-
ures made in an Etruscan style; one such in the British
Museum (inv. no. ,.) contains about %
zinc.58 The alloy from which the Fitzwilliam pieces
are made would still be unusual for this type of object
in Republican Rome, but perhaps not entirely out of
the question. However, the nickel content (.%) is
very high for this period and would be more usual in
a medieval or post-medieval alloy up to about .59
Even if these were Roman pieces, in order for them
to have appeared in their current state in London in
the early twentieth century, an original surface of cor-
rosion products would have had to have been stripped
off, the casting aws drilled out and plugged, the
ancient attributes added. Generally, if the surface
of an excavated object has been treated in this way,
it will appear more damaged and diminished than
the near perfection of detail and smoothness of these
two objects and also, remnants of original corrosion
392
 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
product crust will remain trapped in the relief and
other inaccessible areas. Technical matters aside,
stylistically, the pieces are considered to be no more
convincing as Roman copies than they are as Etruscan
originals.60
The auctioneers story of the bombing raid seems
particularly fanciful. If the impact damage had been
sufcient to break the thunderbolt (on which there is
no evidence of recent breaks) and the tang of the
disc, surely there would have been other physical
signs (at least scratching and abrasion on the gures).
If the heat had been intense enough to damage the
patina (which does not look at all damaged), it might
actually have created the tenorite on the surface but it
also would have melted, or at least distorted, the lead
bases.
A context for the Fitzwilliam Etruscan
gures
In the long history of archaeological fakes, it has often
been noted that Etruscan material provides particu-
larly productive ground for forgers. The mysterious
art and culture of Etruria have exerted a strong fascin-
ation ever since a veritable mania61 for all things
Etruscan, or thought to be Etruscan, developed in the
eighteenth century. The forms tend to be highly styl-
ized and thus easy to imitate. Etruscan art was eclectic
and is famous for its inconsistency. It had developed
in a less predictable way than, for example, Greek art
and, certainly at the time the Fitzwilliam pieces were
purchased, was less well-known and understood.
Some of the most compelling stories concerning
the unmasking of audacious forgeries and pastiches
have been about Etruscan pieces, for example, the
terracotta sarcophagus and the bronze chariot pur-
chased by the British Museum in and enough in style or whether he doubted their authenti-
respectively, the enormous terracotta warriors
acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York between and and denitively exposed During the course of research for this paper,
in .62
Amongst Etruscan bronze objects, the materials
that have been given the most systematic attention in
technical as well as stylistic and art-historical study
are the large body of Etruscan bronze mirrors (twenty-
ve volumes of the Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum
have appeared since ) and, to a lesser extent,
the Praenestine cistae (in volumes published by the
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ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche since ). Such
studies have identied modern reworkings of ancient
pieces and also numerous outright forgeries. Schools
of forgery have been discussed and possible historical
locations of workshops considered.63
Questionable Etruscan bronze statuettes turn up
rather more randomly in the literature, although it is
generally acknowledged that there are many in both
public and private collections. There have been exam-
ples in exhibitions, books and articles that deal more
generally with fakes and forgeries64 and discussion in
conferences that have attended major exhibitions of
ancient metalwork.65 They have occasionally found a
place in catalogues of museum collections (but only
rarely are illustrated).66 Another source is the scien-
tic literature, in which they may appear as test-cases
for new methods of analysis.67
The Monte Acuto Ragazza gures were some of the
most impressive Etruscan votive bronzes ever found
and were, perhaps, obvious targets for forgers to copy,
adapt and embellish in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Nicholls wrote to Quentin Maule
in July : one needs to distinguish between the
group of Monte Guragazza and related bronzes, the
products of a single ancient Etruscan workshop and
their relatives, the products of a single relatively
modern hand. This is why I referred you to Mrs
Richardson, as it is she who has assembled both
groups.68 Unfortunately, Richardson never made any
reference to the latter group in her published work
and her papers and notebooks from this period are,
possibly, no longer in existence.69 Maule included
only twenty-two objects in his Monte Acuto Ragazza
group, but noted that more than objects had been
cited at some time or other as stylistically related.70
He did not indicate whether he had rejected other
candidates purely because he did not think them close
city. Like Richardson, he seems to have left no other
published record of his thoughts on the subject.
enquiries of museums and scholars of Etruscan
material, have not, so far, revealed any obvious near
relatives of the Fitzwilliam statuettes. However, there
is photographic evidence of at least two pieces based
quite closely on the Monte Acuto Ragazza gures that
have been dismissed in the literature as forgeries.
A female gure, half the size of the original, was pho-
tographed in , at a dealers in Rome (Fig. ).71 It
393
 J U L I E D A W S O N AL
Fig. . Bronze female gure photographed in a Rome art dealers
shop in . Felbermeyer, Neg. D-DAI-Rom ..
Reproduced courtesy of the Deutsches Archologisches Institut,
Rome.
appears from the image to be a rather crude copy. The
other, in an unidentied private collection, was pub-
lished as authentic in and resurfaced as a fake in
.72 This is a cm high warrior gure: although
dubbed embarrassing, on stylistic grounds, by the
Etruscan scholar Mauro Cristofani,73 it seems, from
the rather grainy images available, to have some of the
technical accomplishment of the Fitzwilliam gures.
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NRDH T R E V O R E M M E T T
It seems most likely that the Fitzwilliam gures
were made in Italy, but it has not been possible to
locate their place of manufacture more precisely.74
Why did the Fitzwilliam buy the Etruscans?
Winifred Lamb was appointed as Honorary Keeper of
Greek Antiquities in , the rst ofcial keeper of
the collection.75 Bronzes were one of her particular
interests and she spent her early years in the Museum
building up the collection and studying both exca-
vated material and museum objects; work which cul-
minated in her publication Greek and Roman
Bronzes.76
There is evidence in the records of her caution
about technical as well as stylistic aspects of objects
that appeared on the market. For example, in
she wrote to F. N. Pryce (Keeper of Greek and Roman
Antiquities) at the British Museum asking for his
opinion about the surface of an Etruscan bronze
female gure that she had been offered by a dealer. It
was an attractive piece, but she was suspicious of the
corrosion products and suggested that she would like
the British Museum scientist Harold Plenderleith to
have a look at it;77 she did not acquire this object for
the Fitzwilliam. Also recorded are her reservations
about another bronze in the sale at which the two
Etruscans were purchased, on the basis that its
surface looked funny.78
In , the Department of Greek and Roman
Antiquities was getting back on its feet after World
War Two. Lamb had been largely absent for the
duration, rstly looking after her mother, then work-
ing for the BBC. Compared to other sections of the
Fitzwilliam, her Department had had a very quiet
War indeed: although much of the Museums collection
had been sent away to safety and most of the building
shut up with only a skeleton staff in post, forty exhibi-
tions had been staged in the ve rst-oor galleries of
the Founders Building. However, only one of these
had included antiquities and had been initiated exter-
nally. Bequests and gifts had continued to come in
to the Museum and some departments had even made
a few purchases. The Egyptian and Near Eastern
Department had been given the large and important
Gayer-Anderson collection in , parts of which
arrived over the next few years, but the Department
of Greek and Roman Antiquities had received only six
pots, two heavily over-painted pieces of Pompeian wall-
painting, one small gold plaque and seven Etruscan
394
 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
gems (these latter were gifts of the Director).79
Throughout , the galleries were being rearranged
in preparation for re-opening. There is no direct
evidence that the Museum was seeking a signicant
purchase to attract the attention of the public to the
Greek and Roman galleries but, equally, it is easy to
see how tempting these two remarkable pieces must
have seemed.80
Two of the most prominent Classical scholars of
the age, Bernard Ashmole and John Beazley, had
vouched for them, although it should be noted that
neither of them was a specialist in bronzes. Un-named
members of the Classics Faculty at Cambridge whom
Clarke consulted, also considered the statuettes to be
an important acquisition.81 The NACF was willing to
make a major nancial contribution to the purchase.
The statuettes were already prominent, featuring for
example in a highly select group of Objects of Art and
Vertu in the Public Eye in the Illustrated London
News three days before the sale.82
Nicholls reported later that Winifred had written
to him some months before she died in , saying
that she did not institute the purchase, this being
rather sprung on her while she was not yet properly
back into things at the Museum after the war. Her
attitude towards them was ambivalent, displaying
them as genuine, but with some private doubts, at
least in her later years.83 Perhaps she was trying
to distance herself from the unfortunate incident,
because presumably, if she, the bronzes specialist, had
had serious personal reservations, the purchase would
not have gone ahead. However, it is also clear from
the May correspondence that she would not be
prepared to make a recommendation to bid without
the approval of her illustrious contemporaries. Their
condence in the pieces swung the balance.
In , the study of Etruscan small bronze statuary
was not particularly well advanced. Ironically, given
his role in this story, it was Ashmole himself who had
suggested to Richardson in that she study them
because it needs doing. In the introduction to
Etruscan Votive Bronzes, Richardson describes the
state of the eld when she began her research. The
lack of xed dates in Etruscan history made the cata-
loguing task especially complex. The inuence of
Greek art had been misunderstood and overestimated.
There were a few publications of votive deposits
found in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
over a wide geographic area. From these, it could be
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ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM
deduced that certain votive types were universal
across Etruria, but that there was great variety in
regional styles.84
In this environment, the eccentricities of the
Fitzwilliam gures would not necessarily have raised
too many suspicions. In addition, these are not care-
less copies of original pieces, but thoughtful adapta-
tions. The gures are the products of close observation
and a high level of technical accomplishment in
modelling, casting and patination.
There remains the question of why it took so long
for a documented technical study to be instigated.
Nicholls states throughout the correspondence that
the statuettes would be examined as part of the
preparation for a catalogue of the Departments
bronzes, but in the end that project was never even
begun. In , when Maule offered to help arrange
analysis of the metal and the corrosion products,
Nicholls declined saying that he did not feel it could
contribute anything in isolation: it would be useful
only if others from the Monte Acuto Ragazza group
were also analysed.85 To a certain extent this a justi-
able reaction and it is certainly the case that by
very few analyses of Etruscan bronzes had
been published.86 But even in isolation from the rest
of the group, the high proportion of zinc in the alloy
would have raised more doubts about the pieces, as
it was generally thought from both ancient texts and
the analyses of Greek and Roman bronzes published
to date, that brass was unlikely in pieces of this
date.87 A closer examination of the composition and
morphology of the corrosion products might also
have removed his remaining shreds of faith in the
patina.
But, after years of discomfort at their continued
public presence, Nicholls had nally got them off dis-
play and into the back of a cupboard. Even at twenty-
four years distance from the purchase, he probably
preferred them to be quietly forgotten. He was con-
vinced of their falsity and the balance of the technical
evidence now suggests that he was right.
Supplementary material
Online appendices at http://www.jhc.oxfordjournals.
org provide detailed information on the analytical
techniques used and the results achieved in the exam-
ination of the gures.
395
 J U L I E D A W S O N AL
Addresses for correspondence
Julie Dawson, Department of Antiquities, Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge CB RB.
jd@cam.ac.uk
Trevor Emmett, Faculty of Science and Technology, Anglia
Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge CB PT.
trevor.emmett@anglia.ac.uk
Acknowledgements
We are indebted to the following for their help during the preparation
of this paper: Dr Laura Ambrosini, Professor Mary Boatwright,
Bruker AXS Ltd., Dr Lucilla Burn, Keren Butler, Dr Kate Cooper,
Dr Paul Craddock, Jo Dillon, Helen Dunn, Dr Sarah Elliot, Oliver
Forge, Professor Marjan Galestin, Professor Nancy de Grummond,
Professor Ruurd Halbertsma, Dr Laurent Haumesser, Dr Sybille
Haynes, Andrew Lacey, Dr Marinella Marchesi, Dr John Merkel,
Dr Joan Mertens, Professor Richard De Puma, Nicholas Robinson,
Mark Santangelo, Dr Judith Swaddling, Dr Eleni Vassilika, Rachel
Weatherall, Sue Willetts.
Notes and references
Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of Greek, Etruscan and Roman
Antiquities, May (London, ), lot , pls XI and XII.
Annual Museum Report published in the Cambridge University
Reporter (hereafter FMAR), , p. . The circumstance of the
sale and early doubts about the authenticity of the objects
have previously been described briey in K. Butcher and
D. W. J. Gill, The director, the goddess, and her champions:
the acquisition of the Fitzwilliam goddess, American Journal
of Archaeology no. (), pp. -, and D. W. J. Gill,
Winifred Lamb and the Fitzwilliam Museum, in C. Stray
(ed.), Classics in th and th century Cambridge. Curriculum,
Culture and Community (Cambridge, ), pp. -.
. cm and cm respectively.
L. Banti, Etruscan Cities and their Culture, trans. E. Bizzari
(London, ); S. Haynes, Etruscan Bronzes (London, ),
pp. -.
L. Bonfante, Daily life and afterlife, in L. Bonfante (ed.),
Etruscan Life and Afterlife. A Handbook of Etruscan Studies
(Detroit, ), pp. -.
For descriptions of these gures see E. H. Richardson,
Etruscan Votive Bronzes. Geometric, Orientalising, Archaic
(Mainz am Rhein, ), p. and pl. , p. and pl.
, p. and pl. .
F. Warre, [Sothebys], June , letter to Bernard
Ashmole, British Museum [manuscript] Greek and Roman
Department Library, . Quoted courtesy of the Trustees of
the British Museum.
Unpublished documents in the Fitzwilliam Museum
Founders Library (hereafter FMArchive), Lamb-Clarke May
. August
Unpublished documents in the Fitzwilliam Museum
Antiquities Department (hereafter FMAntArchive), Ashmole-
Lamb May .
S. C. Cockerell diary, January June , British Library,
Additional MS , vol. LXIII.
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NRDH T R E V O R E M M E T T
S. C. Cockerell to L. C. G. Clarke, May quoted in
Butcher and Gill, op. cit. (note ), p. , n. .
Fitzwilliam Museum, Handbook and Guide (Cambridge, ,
, ); The Fitzwilliam Museum: An Illustrated Survey
(Cambridge, ).
National Art-Collections Fund, Forty-third Annual Report
(London, ).
Butcher and Gill, op. cit. (note ).
Gill, op. cit. (note ), p. .
FMAntArchive, Nicholls-Lamb April .
Richardson, op. cit. (note ).
L. Richardson Jr., Emeline Hill Richardson, ,
American Journal of Archaeology no. (), p. .
FMAntArchive, Nicholls-Ahrens June .
FMAntArchive, Ahrens-Nicholls October .
Ibid.
D. Ahrens, Etruskische Bronzestatuetten, Pantheon:
Internationale Zeitschrift fr Kunst no. (), pp. -
. Extending discussion of the stylistic features of the
statuettes is not within the scope of this article. However,
during its preparation we have been in contact with a number
of scholars of Etruscan material, all of whom have been struck
by the misinterpretation of costume types and details in the
Fitzwilliam gures and the peculiarity of the attributes. The
strange elongation of the gures has been noted. It has been
pointed out that forgers often look to other materials and
even other cultures and possible sources of inspiration have
been proposed beyond the two Monte Acuto Ragazza gures.
Ahrens, op. cit. (note ), p. . In : Luisa Banti (-
), Professor of Etruscan Studies and Italic Archaeology,
University of Florence; Giacomo Caputo (-),
Superintendant of Antiquities of Etruria; Silvio Ferri (-
), Emeritus Professor of Archaeology and the History of
Greek and Roman Art, University of Pisa; Massimo Pallottino
(-), Professor of Etruscology and Italic Antiquities,
University of Rome.
FMAntArchive, Nicholls-Ahrens June . George Ortiz
(b. ), collector; Dr Herbert Adolf Cahn (-)
dealer in coins and antiquities, lecturer in Greek and Roman
numismatics at Heidelberg University.
FMAntArchive, Nicholls-Maule July .
FMAntArchive, Nicholls-Ahrens June .
FMAntArchive, Maule-Nicholls June .
FMAntArchive, Maule-Nicholls June .
Q. Maule, The Monteguragazza style, Studi Etruschi
(), pp. -.
P. J. Riis, Vulcientia Vetustiora. A Study of Archaic Vulcian
Bronzes (Copenhagen, ).
FMAntArchive, Riis-Vassilika February .
E. Vassilika, Ancient Imitations. Forgeries and Facsimiles
from Antiquity, exhibition held in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
January , unpublished handlist to the
exhibition, p. .
For further detail on the manufacture of Etruscan lost-wax
casting see Haynes, op. cit. (note ), pp. -; contribution by
E. Formigli in M. Cristofani, I bronzi degli Etruschi (Novara,
), pp. -.
396
 TWO ETRUSCAN B R O N Z E S T A T UR
Personal communication, Andrew Lacey, sculptor and bronze-
caster, August .
J. Bayley, The production of brass in antiquity with particular
reference to Roman Britain, in P. T. Craddock (ed.)
years of Zinc and Brass, British Museum Occasional Paper
(London, ), pp. -.
P. T. Craddock, The metallurgy and composition of Etruscan
bronze, Studi Etruschi (), pp. -.
C. P. Thornton, Of brass and bronze in prehistoric Southwest
Asia, in S. La Niece, D. Hook and P. T. Craddock (eds), Metals
and Mining. Studies in Archaeometallurgy (London, ),
pp. -; P. T. Craddock and K. Eckstein, Production of
brass in antiquity by direct reduction, in P. T. Craddock and
J. Lang (eds), Mining and Metal Production through the Ages
(London, ), pp. -.
Oreichkalkos (mountain copper). The changing use over time
and the history of interpretation of this word are discussed at
length in P. Craddock, The composition of the copper alloys
used by the Greek, Etruscan and Roman civilisations, . The
origins and early use of brass, Journal of Archaeological Science
(), pp. -
Craddock and Eckstein, op. cit. (note ), p. .
H. Postma, P. Schillebeeckx and R. B. Halbertsma, Neutron
resonance capture analysis of some genuine and fake Etruscan
copper alloy statuettes, Archaeometry no. (), pp. -.
Craddock, op. cit. (note ), p. ; M. C. Galestin,
Reproductions, falsications and imitations of ancient bronzes,
BABesch (), pp. -. Unfortunately, the original
interpretation of the analysis is still referred to in some recent
literature, for example in Thornton, op. cit. (note ), p. .
The object was examined by the rst author with Dr Judith
Swaddling, Senior Curator, Department of Greece and
Rome, British Museum, August ; Dr P. T. Craddock,
personal communication, August .
P. T. Craddock, Scientic Investigation of Copies, Fakes and
Forgeries (Oxford, ), p. .
Ibid., pp. , -.
Loan Ant. .. ICP-OES analysis of the metal shows that
this gure, also considered to be fth-century BC Etruscan, has
a more typical composition (.% copper, .% lead and
.% tin). Its authenticity has never been doubted either on
stylistic or technical grounds.
Craddock, op. cit. (note ), p. , D. A. Scott, Copper and
Bronze in Art (Los Angeles, ), p. .
A. H. Hiorns, Metal-colouring and Bronzing, nd edn (London,
), p. .
Ibid., pp. -.
Craddock, op. cit. (note ), p. ; Scott, op. cit. (note ),
p. .
Craddock, op. cit. (note ), p. .
R. S. W. Braithwaite, K. Mereiter, W. H. Parr and A. M. Clark,
Herbertsmithite, CuZn(OH)Cl, a new species, and the
denition of paratacamite, Mineralogical Magazine no.
(), pp. -; Scott, op. cit. (note ), p. . (Pisa, ).
See, for example, entries in Haynes, op. cit. (note ) and in
A. Kozloff and D. G. Mitten, The Gods Delight. The Human
Figure in Classical Bronze (Cleveland, Ohio, ), pp. -.
Haynes, op. cit. (note ), p. ; Craddock, op. cit. (note ),
p. .
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ERTH
TES IN THE FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM
Haynes, op. cit. (note ), p. .
See image AN of object ,. at www.
britishmuseum . org / research / search_the_collection_
database/advanced_search.aspx
H. B. Walters, Catalogue of Bronzes, Greek, Roman and
Etruscan in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities,
British Museum (London, ), pl. . Remains of the
plugs on the Monte Acuto Ragazza gures are visible on the
photographs in Richardson, op. cit. (note ).
Galestin, op. cit. (note ).
N. de Grummond, Rediscovery, in Bonfante, op. cit. (note ),
p. .
Craddock, op. cit. (note ), p. ; Postma, Schillebeeckx and
Halbertsma, op. cit. (note ), p. .
Craddock op. cit. (note ), p. and personal communication,
August . Dr Craddock noted also that a substantial
trace of antimony (Sb) might have been expected in a post-
medieval European copper, but that the detection limit of the
ICP-OES analysis on the Fitzwilliam samples was over % (see
online Appendices and ), so this could explain the absence.
Dr L. M. Burn, Keeper of Antiquities, Fitzwilliam Museum,
personal communication, August .
De Grummond, op. cit. (note ), p. .
These and other examples are discussed fully in A. Andrn,
Deeds and Misdeeds in Classical Art and Antiquities, Studies
in Mediterranean Archaeology, Pocket Book (Partille,
Sweden, ), pp. -.
See, for example, N. T. de Grummond, Forgeries, in N. T. de
Grummond (ed.), A Guide to Etruscan Mirrors (Tallahassee,
), pp. -; R. De Puma, Forgeries of Etruscan engraved
mirrors, in C. Mattusch, A. Brauer and S. Knudsen (eds),
From the Parts to the Whole. Acta of the th International Bronze
Congress, held at Cambridge, Massachusetts, May June ,
(Portsmouth, RI, ), pp. -.
For example: M. Pallottino, Il problema delle falsicazioni
darte etrusca di fronte all critica, Saggi di Antichit (),
pp. -, pls. lxxix:, lxxx:; Flschung und Forschung,
exh. cat., Museum Folkwang, Essen and Staatliche Museen,
Berlin (Essen and Berlin, ): see p. no. naked
dancer (Badisches Landesmusem, Karlsruhe) and no.
Warrior (British Museum); M. Jones (ed.), Fake? The Art of
Deception (London, ), p. , no. b banqueter (British
Museum).
For example, in papers and discussion sessions in S. Doeringer,
D. G. Mitten and A. Steinberg, Art and Technology. A Symposium
on Classical Bronzes, (Cambridge, MA, ), the conference
which accompanied the exhibition Master Bronzes from the
Classical World, held at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University in .
An example of a catalogue in which everything is described and
illustrated is F. Jurgeit (with contribution from J. Riederer),
Die Etruskischen und Italischen Bronzen sowie Gegenstnde aus
Eisen, Blei und Leder im Badischen Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
For example, Postma, Schillebeeckx and Halbertsma, op.
cit. (note ). The objects analysed were eleven statuettes or
parts of statuettes from the Corazzi collection in the National
Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, Netherlands.
FMAntArchive, Nicholls-Maule July .
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We are very grateful to Mary Boatwright, Professor of Ancient
History in the Department of Classics, Duke University,
North Carolina, for her efforts to track down these papers.
Maule, op. cit. (note ), p. , n.
E. Homann-Wedeking, Bronzestatuetten Etruskischen Stils,
Rmische Mitteilungen (), pp. -.
E. Bielefeld, Eine etruskische Bronzestatuette, Archologischer
Anzeiger, issued with Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archologischen
Instituts (), pp. -; E. Paul, Geflschte Antike von der
Renaissance bis zur Gegenwart (Vienna, ), p. , pl. .
Christofani, op. cit. (note ), p. .
Professor Richard De Puma (personal communication, April
) noted the similarity of the females drapery to that of a
bronze statuette associated with Chiusi by Haynes because of
its stylistic connections to stone sculpture from there (Haynes
(op. cit. note ), pp. -). He pointed out that Chiusi is
known (from identied forgeries and from contemporary
accounts) to have been a centre of Etruscan forgery
production from about , so may be a possible origin for
the Fitzwilliam gures.
For discussion of Lambs tenure and her overall inuence on
the Greek and Roman Department, see Cooper, above.
Gill, op. cit. (note ), pp. , -.
W. Lamb to F. N. Pryce, February , British Museum
[manuscript] Greek and Roman Department Library, .
FMAntArchive, Lamb-Clarke May .
FMAR -.
FMAR , p. .
Note in Clarkes hand on the back of a draft letter
FMAntArchive, Clarke A. H. Meldrum (Secretary to the
NACF), May .
Illustrated London News, May , p. .
FMAntArchive, Nicholls Maule July .
Richardson, op. cit. (note ), pp. xi-xiv. The dedication in the
front of the book reads For Bernard Ashmole who said one
day in This needs doing.
FMAntArchive, Maule Nicholls July ; FMAntArchive
Nicholls Maule July .
Craddock, op. cit. (note ), pp. -.
E. R. Caley, Chemical composition of Greek and Roman
statuary bronzes, in Doeringer, Mitten and Steinberg, op. cit.
(note ), pp. - and in the following Discussion session
., pp. -; E. R. Caley A chemical investigation of an
alleged ancient Greek bronze statuette, Technical Studies in
the Field of the Fine Arts no. (), pp. -.

398

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