Vatican Museums

The idea for the Supplement 6 of the Bollettino dei Monumenti, Musei e Gallerie Pontificie originated after the restoration of the pyxis-krater coming from the Regolini-Galassi tomb, painted with the white-on-red technique; it is an extraordinary artwork, considered «among the most ancient and genuine example of the Etruscan painting».

In the first part of the volume, Maurizio Sannibale reconsidered the dating of the object by placing it at 660-650 B.C., and examined the stylistic and iconographic aspects revealed by the integral restoration of the original pictorial cycle. This cycle represents a sampler of the Orientalizing fantastic bestiary, with the lion, the sphinx, the chimera, the centaur, and the boar being placed side by side in a suggestive decoration. The second part is dedicated to the detailed analysis of the restoration, that allowed the legibility of the decoration, only partially readable before the intervention, because of a thick layer of oxidation. The last section gathered the studies carried out by the Cabinet of Scientific Research, that gave a decisive support in the complex work of restoration.