Hand Mirror
Ancient Etruscan
470-450 BCE
Medium
Bronze
Dimensions
16.8 × 15.1 × 0.7 cm (6 5/8 × 6 × 5/16 in.) (with tang)
Classification
accessories (object genre)
Department
Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
103304
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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.