Hand Mirror

Description

Found in women’s graves, bronze mirrors were luxurious personal possessions used in life and then buried with the dead for use in the afterlife. One side was highly polished; the other side was usually engraved with a mythic scene, such as this one, which shows the goddess Eos carrying the body of her son, Memnon, who was killed by the hero Achilles. The episode was taken from Homer’s The Iliad, the epic poem that narrates the Greek siege and eventual defeat of the city of Troy.

Provenance

R. Zeitz collection, London [according to note in curatorial object file]; sold to Michael Ward, Inc. New York by 1983 [excerpt from dealer catalog in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1984.

Hand Mirror

Ancient Etruscan

470-450 BCE

Accession Number

103304

Medium

Bronze

Dimensions

16.8 × 15.1 × 0.7 cm (6 5/8 × 6 × 5/16 in.) (with tang)

Classification

accessories (object genre)

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Katherine K. Adler Memorial Fund