Published Catalogue Text: Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Bronzes at the Harvard Art Museums
This female deity of a type known as a Lasa stands on her left foot and gazes to her left as if in a ceremonial pose. A sea monster (a ketos or pistrix) stands next to her left thigh and wraps itself around her leg; it is highly stylized and has a canine-like head, a beard, a spiky long dorsal, and pectoral fins (1). Metal shoes were placed under the original feet due to an old repaired break at the ankles. The angle of the figure’s feet may have been caused by the damaged ankles or by some casting abnormality. The proper left arm is adorned with three hanging objects, while the right arm has one bracelet. Although the object is not preserved, the positioning of the fingers of her right hand suggests that she held a container of perfume or a wand. In her left hand is the alabastron or purse that Lasas used to anoint the dead. Traces of lead and corrosive material inside the base of the cylindrical headpiece indicate that it may have been a support for an incense-burning tray rather than a candelabrum.
“Lasa” was a general term for a type of Etruscan female deity, somewhat like a nymph; an epithet was sometimes given to distinguish specific Lasas (2). A mirror from Vulci shows the Lasa Thimrae with an alabastron in her left hand and a stick for distributing the contents of the alabastron in her right (3). Based on the presence of the sea monster, this Lasa appears to be a specific type of divinatory figure, although her exact identity is unknown. She is also distinguished by her pointed slippers and a light mantle, which is buttoned on one side and drapes over her right shoulder, sensually displaying her left breast and buttocks.
A bronze statuette of a winged Lasa from Perguia, dated c. 300 BCE and now at the Museo Archaeologico, Florence, bears striking similarity to this piece (4). The Perugian Lasa suggests that Etruscan workshops from the fourth century BCE were familiar with the Lasa and sea-monster motif (5), which is rarely depicted in the bronze mirrors that represented winged Lasas engaged with the pantheon of Etruscan divinities. Some mirrors from the late fourth century BCE bearing the inscription “Lasa” show her wearing a peplos with jewelry or a flower and actively engaged in divination. While Lasas appear in the company of a variety of deities on inscribed mirrors, including Jupiter, Athena, Mars, and Herakles, they are frequently companions of Aphrodite (Turan) or Helen, which might indicate an erotic connotation (6). The ratio of winged to wingless Lasas is two to one, making the absence of wings here not unusual.
NOTES:
1. For a description and examples of this sea monster, see K. Shepard, The Fish-tailed Monster in Greek and Etruscan Art (New York, 1940) 28-30 and 58-59, figs. 38-41 and 70. For an analysis with the iconography of Lasas, see R. Lambrechts, “Lasa” Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 4.1: 217 and 223-25.
2. Ibid., 224-35.
3. LIMC Lasa no. 4
4. See F. Moretti, Notizie degli scavi di Antichità 1900: 553-57, esp. 555-56, fig. 4; G. Q. Giglioli, L’arte etrusca (Milan, 1935) 58, pl. 310.4; R. Herbig, Götter und Dämonen der Etrusker (Mainz, 1965) 27 and 47-48, pl. 43; and LIMC Lasa no. 47.
5. For further discussion of Etruscan bronzes of this type, see the publication of Harvard piece in D. G. Mitten and S. Doeringer, Master Bronzes from the Classical World, exh. cat., The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; City Art Museum of St. Louis; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Mainz, 1967) no. 184; iid., The Frederick M. Watkins Collection, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1973) 80, no. 33; and R. S. Teitz, Masterpieces of Etruscan Art, exh. cat., Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, 1967) no. 81.
6. See Lambrechts “Lasa” (supra 1) 223.
Nicola Demonte
