Vatican Museums

The antefix, of the type without a nimbus, decorated the tiles at the ends of the eaves of the roof, constituting a serial decoration. It has the form of a female head, the details of which are defined through finely detailed polychrome painting, rather than in relief. The head is crowned with a diadem, decorated with a double row of leaves and small spears. She wears a pair of disc-shaped earrings with a rosette painted in the centre.
This type of archaic antefix is typical of Cerveteri, the site from which there originate various similar specimens now dispersed among the museums of Berlin (Antiquarium), Copenhagen (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek), London (British Museum), New York (Metropolitan Museum), Philadelphia (University Museum) and Rome (Villa Giulia). Its stylistic traits, including the persistent archaic “smile”, denote the still appreciable influence of the Ionic style, evident in a great deal of Etruscan artistic and artisanal production from the Middle to Late Archaic period.