Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum. USA. Vol. 5. West Coast Collections. Etruscan Mirrors

This fascicle of the Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum, which has been long in the making, is a collaborative effort between colleagues and friends: Evelyn Bell and Helen Nagy. Evelyn Bell contributed the catalogue entries on the mirrors in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Frank V. de Bellis Collection at San Francisco State University. Helen Nagy was responsible for the catalogue entries on the mirrors at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the J. Paul Getty Museum; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; the Art Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and the Seattle Art Museum.

Analysis of the chemical composition of the mirrors is an invaluable tool to help scholars determine where the mirrors were manufactured and whether or not they are Etruscan, Roman, or even authentic works of art. Six of the mirrors in Berkeley were analyzed, while the remaining twelve were unfortunately either too fragile or corroded to allow for sampling. The mirrors in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Seattle Art Museum were tested, the one at San Francisco State University was not. Jesse Obert, a scholar and doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, has ably summarized the results of these analyses.