An Etruscan Representation of the Murder of Itys on a Black-Figured Oinochoe in the Faina Museum

Abstract

This study deals with an Etruscan black-figured oinochoe of the early fifth century BC in the Faina Museum (Orvieto),
with the representation of the myth of the killing of Itys by Prokne and Philomela. A detailed examination of both
literary and artistic sources (including a small corpus of representations of the myth in Etruscan art) reveals that the
Etruscan painter was not affected by contemporary compositions created in Athens and circulating in Etruria, where
the emphasis is put on the murder of the child by a single woman, assisted by the other. In his mind, the act of murder
was collective, and this is expressed in the perfect symmetry of the gestures of the two women on the oinochoe and on a
much later Etruscan engraved mirror. The Faina oinochoe bears evidence of the highly sophisticated and accurate efforts
displayed by the Etruscan artists in the manipulation of Greek mythology.