Skip to main content
An Etruscan amber head pendant image 1
An Etruscan amber head pendant image 2
Property from an American Private Collection (Lots 29-43)
Lot 41*

An Etruscan amber head pendant

3 July 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

Sold for £1,536 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Antiquities specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

An Etruscan amber head pendant

Circa 5th Century B.C.
5cm long

Footnotes

Provenance:
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's London, Antiquities, 14-15 December 1981, lot 206.
The property of an American private collector, acquired at the above sale.

From the late 6th Century B.C. strings of amber beads were found in the tombs of wealthy women in Magna Graecia. From the 5th Century B.C., finds of amber pendants and figures occur in Etruria. Such head beads are carved in the archaic style. The exaggerated large eye of the above lot may have had apotropaic powers to see and ward off evil. There is another Etruscan amber profile head pendant of similar proportions, dated circa 525–480 B.C. in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, no. 83.AO.202.1.

Additional information

Bid now on these items