Dancers appear in a number of Etruscan tomb-paintings, and abandon
themselves to their gambols with a frenzy which might seem incompatible
with death and entombment. In the Tomba del Morto at Corneto, dating
from the same period, we find traces of a pirouetting dancer close to
the couch of the dead and the lamenting mourners; the dance was thus as
important as the funeral lament (fig. 9). The finest representations
of Etruscan mourning dancers are found in the Tomba del Triclinio,
which dates from the beginning of the fifth century B.C.: the Ny
Carlsberg Glyptotek contains several earlier, inferior facsimiles,
made from the copies in the Museo Gregoriano and only touched up at
Corneto by the painter Mariani;[23] and some more recent ones carefully
executed on the spot (fig. 10). On each wall three female and two male
dancers are seen among trees; fillets and singing-birds appear in the
foliage. The male dancers play on lyre and flute; the dancing-girls
have castanets and the foremost a strap or chaplet with bells over her
shoulder. Similar chaplets with bells are often seen hanging on the
walls in pictures representing the symposia in honour of the dead (see
below), and bear witness to the childish predilection of the Etruscans
for gipsy-like noise and merry-making. The most beautiful dancing-girl,
however, in any Etruscan tomb is the already mentioned ‘bella
ballerina di Corneto’, discovered on a wall in the Tomba Francesca
Giustiniani. We give this figure, which has never been reproduced,
after the facsimile in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek which arrived there
shortly before the death of Carl Jacobsen and gave him one of the last
pleasures in his life (fig. 11).
[Illustration: FIG. 9. PICTURE FROM THE TOMBA DEL MORTO AT CORNETO]
[Illustration: FIG. 10. PICTURE FROM THE TOMBA DEL TRICLINIO]
When I examined the original in the tomb at Corneto I made the
following notes: the drapery (chiton), which is ornamented with a
pattern of dotted rosettes, is distinctly preserved from the hips down
to the elegant fluttering edge. Much of the middle part of the body
has been destroyed; the fluttering ends of the red scarf across the
shoulders are visible to right and left. The upper part of the body and
the shoulders are also well preserved. The right arm is raised, and
visible from shoulder to elbow; a faint outline of the left arm is also
visible.[24] Of the head, the brow, the beginning of the nose, the ear,
the green fluttering head-dress, the red hair with a loosened tress
in front of the ear have been preserved. To the spectator the picture
still conveys an impression of joy, of graceful movement, and of filmy
fluttering draperies.
[Sidenote: ETRUSCAN DANCE AND SONG]
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