The Sarcophagus of the Spouses, a terracotta sarcophagus from the 6th century B.C. that is the most iconic masterpiece of Etruscan art, is undergoing an comprehensive new restoration in public view. The sarcophagus is the jewel in the crown of the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome.
The sarcophagus is a monumental cinerary urn composed of a lower part in the shape of a kline, or bed, and a top part depicting a married couple reclining at a banquet. The spouses are the lid of the urn and the bed is where the ashes were kept. Their placid archaic smiles, spooning bodies and tender embrace testify to the loving bond between them — Etruscan women were able to choose their spouses and love matches were common — and to the finesse and skill of Etruscan pottery makers.
The spouses were not the spouses when they were first discovered on April 9th, 1881, in the Etruscan Banditaccia necropolis of Cervetri. The sarcophagus was just a pile of more than 400 fragments unearthed on the estate of Prince Francesco Ruspoli, but archaeologist and founder the Villa Giulia museum Felice Barnabei saw a female head in the pile of fragments and knew it was something special. His father was a majolica maker and Barnabei had worked in his father’s workshop as a youth, so he had a particularly keen eye for earthenware. He recognized that all the fragments were from the same “furnace fire” and therefore part of a single large artifact (albeit fired in sections because it was far too large to be done in one fell swoop).
The only comparable sarcophagus with spouses ever found had been discovered in the Banditaccia necropolis by the Marquis Campana in 1854 and bought along with another 10,000 works by Napoleon III in 1861 and installed in the Louvre. With the female head and half a male head among the fragments, Barnabei suspected it was another sarcophagus of the spouses and he wanted it for Rome’s new Etruscan museum. He had competition, however. The director of the Archaeological Museum of Etruria in Florence wanted the pile too. The fight over the fragments went on for 12 years, until in 1893 Barnabei finally made a larger enough offer than his competitor (4,000 lire) and got Prince Ruspoli to declare he would only cede the fragments to the Villa Giulia museum.
The fragments were puzzled back together and the magnificent results became the emblem of the new museum and its greatest draw. A second intervention to maintain the work was performed 50 years ago. The new project will focus on studying the sarcophagus in detail to learn more about it and devise a plan for its long-term conservation and care. It will be laser scanned to create a 3D model, and plaster casts are being made of every section. A new mounting system is also being devised to replace the invasive (and corrosive) metal clamps with durable, strong and clean carbon fiber.
The first phase of the work has already begun. Restorers are cleaning the surface of the section of the sarcophagus with the legs and feet and the spouses, her feet wearing delicate pointed shoes, his feet bare. Using cotton swabs, water and mild solvents to remove the old darked varnish that covers the terracotta.
The restoration workshop will be opened to the public twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday from 10 AM to 1 PM.