Cassandra Scheerer and Dr. Mark Johnson, Visual Arts & Communication
Since its discovery in Chianciano, Etruria, the identification of the figures in the Etruscan cinerary urn Mother and Child (Fig.1) as a mourning mother holding her deceased child has gone uncontested. Reasons for this include the fact that the inscriptions do not identify the figures and the pose seems to logically fit that of a mourning mother with her dead child laid across her lap. The inconsistency of this “Mother” with other portrayals of Etruscan mothers and goddesses with children, led me to dispute the accuracy of the title of the work.
Further research on my part led to the writing of an initial paper for my Art History 306 class and that paper strengthened my belief that this work is incorrectly labeled and that the “mother” actually represents Vanth, the goddess-daemon who would lead departed souls into the next life. In the paper I discuss the reasons for this belief being the influence of Greek Hellenistic art on that of the Etruscans common to the time and location of this statue, which is inconsistent with the stoic representation of the woman. I also discuss other Etruscan urns and sarcophagus friezes that depict Vanth and compare those depictions against the figure in this particular work. Additionally I compare the myths and folklore of the Etruscan underworld and afterlife to those of the Greeks who had such a strong influence on them.
Reflection upon the paper, and discussions with my project mentor, led me to discover some of the strengths and weaknesses of my argument. These discussions helped me open my mind to new possibilities and opportunities for research, which became more valuable to me than I could have know because of the many obstacles I faced while trying to further my research in Europe.
Before I left for Europe, I read through my paper, contacted other scholars, and decided upon a few points I would need to gain more evidence for in order to validate my initial hypothesis. Upon arrival, I visited as many museums as I knew would have Etruscan collections and kept an open mind about the pieces I would discover. The most successful part of my research experience was being able to find new works, spend hours with those works, and discover a new direction for my argument. This new direction may not prove my hypothesis beyond dispute, but it will be a tool in raising important questions about this work.
In the paper my main argument was that this portrayal of a mother-figure seems to not correlate with other emotional portrayals of grieving women in Etruscan art and that Vanth, the goddess/daemon of the underworld, is the more likely figure represented. The foreseeable flaw in this argument was that this statue does not have wings, whereas most other depictions of Vanth do. During my research in Europe, I was able to find a key piece that I discussed in my paper that was the turning point in my research. The piece is House-Urn With Guardian Vanth (Fig. 2), which shows the figure of Vanth at the front of house-shaped stone urn. She is seated in the same position as Mother and Child and has very similar attributes of face and dress. The most important attribute of this representation is that her wings are separate from the actual figure of Vanth, who is pushed up against the front of the urn with her wings carved into the wall behind her. This fact is key because, as I state in my paper, tombs were built as worshipping sites for the deceased, where family member would come to bring votive offerings to both the dead and to the gods and goddesses of the underworld who acted as guardians for them. These tombs were built, carved, painted, and filled with statuary and offerings. My new central argument for this paper focuses on this point: that the figure of the woman in the cinerary urn Mother and Child must be Vanth, regardless of the fact that this statue does not have wings because the statue is now housed in a museum and modern scholars do not know what the original context or placement of this urn was in the tomb where it was found. Thus, this statue may, at one point, have had wings either painted or carved behind her that are now lost.
This new point of departure for my research has created a more powerful desire to find out even more information about this cinerary urn and its original context. I think this is the greatest success of this project so far, but did not come without effort. Some of the museums I visited were closed for renovation, including the Vatican Museum and the Museo Archeologico, where the actual Mother and Child is housed. Despite the setbacks encountered by these renovations and unpredictable closings and openings of parts of the exhibits on a daily basis, I was able to continue and find other means of making this research endeavor fruitful by finding other exhibits at other museums I may not have otherwise visited. Staying open-minded and optimistic led me to the discovery of an even stronger argument for my paper.
Additionally, I will now feel more confident in revising my paper for submission for publication in the Studia Antiqua: The Journal of the Student Society for Ancient Studies at BYU. If the journal accepts this article for publication, I will also be encouraged to submit it to art historical conferences for presentation experience, which will ultimately lay the groundwork for further academic scholarship in Graduate School and beyond.
The research for this particular piece is as complete as I can make it right now, but ideally I would need to do more research and see more statues in person before I could make my paper totally convincing. The ultimate goal for this research project would be the chance to go to Chianciano, which is located in the Tuscan Province of modern-day Italy, and visit some of these burial sites to be able to finally place this funerary urn in its proper context and either prove my hypothesis, or myself, wrong. I am open to both possibilities.