Vatican Museums

The statue represents a naked youth seated on the ground, with his body tipped backwards and his left leg bent under his right one. On the latter is an Etruscan inscription "to the god Tec Sans as a gift". His arms are outstretched and he holds a bird in the right hand and a ball in the left. From his neck hangs a large seal, while he has two rings around his ankle and right wrist and a spiral armilla on his left wrist. His face, smiling and chubby, and the vivacity of his movements refer the bronze to a Hellenistic matrix, a period that saw in Etruria a great diffusion of ex votos of this type, both clay and bronze [cf. Carrara putto]. The "Graziani putto", destined for the divinity Tec Sans, protectress of children, is one of the various attestations of indigenous cults in the area north-east of Lake Trasimeno.