Male Votive Figure

300s BC

Male Votive Figure, 300s BC. Italy, Etruscan, 4th Century BC. Bronze; overall: 21.3 x 7.5 cm (8 3/8 x 2 15/16 in.); base: 5.9 x 4.1 cm (2 5/16 x 1 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund 1985.3 This Etruscan votive figure is posed with his hands turned to expose his palms, one near his hip, the other projecting laterally. With the exception of the fully three-dimensional head and the extended right arm and hand, the side profile of this figure is shockingly flat. The tall man’s back is not only extremely thin but also an almost perfectly vertical column. Other examples of this votive figure type are even more elongated, and some hold small cups or libation dishes, as if making offerings. Some scholars have suggested that these votive figures may represent shadows due to their extreme height and relative lack of depth, while others have seen connections to much older traditions of relatively flat cult images, whether of wood or metal. This bronze statuette was cast in a single piece.