Walks: small Hood
Distances: 2 miles (back to cold and windy)
After decades of of steeping herself in art viewing and art history, Ciwt can usually file her first encounters with art works somewhere near other remembered works. Not so with the Etruscan art in the Legion of Honor's current landmark exhibition, The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy.*
It turns out Ciwt is not alone in being entirely new to the Etruscan civilization, art and culture. Our history books and art museums have kept us well versed on the civilzations that surrounded Etruria - Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, Rome - but virtually dismissed the brillliant civilization that once controlled almost the entire peninsula we now call Italy.
The Etruscans were the first Western Mediterraneum 'superpower,' and. along side the Greeks, developed the fisrt true cities of Europe. If you look closely at the map above you'll see that Rome was just one of many present day Italian towns (Pisa, Florence, Siena) within BC Etruscan territory. As Rome grew into the Roman Empire, much of its organizational, technical, religious and artistic strength rested on the teachings it absorbed from the Etruscans. Roman numerals, the alphabet, aquaducts, intersecting networks of roads, advanced metalwork, temple and house engineering, tools, weapons, ceramic painting techniques, ritual banquets and gladiator contests, rights of inheritance, all these and more were invented or developed by the Etruscans. Try to imagine the Italian Renaissance without those elements.
In view of this high level of culture and vast territory, Ciwt wondered how the Etruscans came to be essentially vanished from the history books. Turns out there were two main factors at play: their city-state organization and the common language they shared. Each city-state was so evolved and guarded, the territory as a whole did not develop a common militia and were ripe for conquest one by one. The Etruscan language was common throughout its lands, however it was utterly unique and incomprehensible to outsiders. As a result, all of its written culture and history disappeared as it was absorbed by Rome.
What remains of the Etruscans are the objects painted or placed in its tombs, which they considered intermediate resting places for the deceased until they went on the afterlife. And these tomb objects tell us much about the Etruscan people. Many tombs are extremely opulent indicating that Etruscan trade of their natural resources - particularly gold, tin, silver and other metals - with other Mediterranean cultures made them staggeringly wealthy. The treasures in a woman's tomb shown in the Legion of Honor exhibition is rife with luxury, one of a kind objects and tells us their women were held in high regard. This is reinforced by paintings and sculptures which show women side by side in equal partnership with men. The people in the art works are gentle, calm, happy (instead of the more bellicose and removed early Greek and Roman figures), and you get a sense that there was a long period of happy living and a joie de vivre mixed with some humor throughout much of the Etruscan peoples.
Or, this is what Ciwt thought. Below are just a few of the art objects that appealed to Ciwt along with her decidely unprofessional signacge. Hopefully you can get to the Legion and choose your own favorites in The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy exhibition.
But first, a word about Renee Dreyfus.
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| Renee Dreyfus, George and Judy Marcus Distinguished Curator in Charge, Ancient Art. |
Thirty years ago Renee Dreyfus began dreaming of removing the complex and fascinating Etruscan culture from the shadows of of the Greeks and Romans and giving it a proper introduction. This was twenty years after she began her curatorship of Ancient Art at the Fine Arts Museums and, with many significant and rare acquisitions, grew a small, spotty collection into a highly regarded and active department. During her tenure at the museum, Dreyfus has organized over 20 exhibitions exploring the ancient Mediterranean civilizations, including the 1979 Treasures of Tutankhamun, its 2009 sequel, Tutankhamun, Last Supper in Pompeii: From the Table to the Grave, Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharoahs among others. These types of exhibitions require supreme connoisseurship and, often even more, delicate international diplomacy. Only a curator in the highest regard would be trusted to bring objects from the Vatican and other highly guarded European museums to the United States for the first time. One such treasure was hand carried from an Italian town by the mayor herself. Such is Renee Dreyfus's respect and stature throughout the world of antiquity arts,
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| Tomb wall and ceiling painting |
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| Etruscan, "Happy" Seal |
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| Etruscan, Married Couple Tomb Figures, ceramic |
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| Etruscan, Bronze Pot with Etching and Handle Doing Yoga Backbend |
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| Velovis (Mercury), Etruscan, Viterbo, Monterazzano, 1st C AD, bronze |
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| Youth with Horse, Etruscan, Bronze, 375-350 BC |
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| Charming Etruscan Bronze Tomb Objects |
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| Etruscan, Charming Banquet Waiter with Tray |
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| Etruscan, Seated Boy, Bronze |
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| Etruscan, Bowl with Deer Head Handles, @ 7th C BC, Bucchero, a distinctly black, burnished ceramic, fired with very little oxygen so that is black clear through. often considered the signature ceramic fabric of the Etruscans. |
*The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy. San Francisco Museum of the Legion of Honor, May 2 - September 20, 2026
** https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/etruscans-heart-ancient-italy
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