Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)

NEW ACQUISITIONS - ÚJ SZERZEMÉNYEK - JÁNOS GYÖRGY SZILÁGYI: Etruscan Grave Marker with Reliefs in the Collection of Classical Antiquities

30 ETRUSCAN GRAVE MARKER WITH RELIEFS. BUDAPEST. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS is an obligatory companion of the animal-tamer

—himself a substitute for the gladiator

—, and of the acrobat suspended between life and death and charged with the task of dissolving fear into laughter. The Collection of Classical Antiquities has never aspired to rival the great collections of the world, both because of its relatively late establishment, and its limited financial resources. Instead, the most important purpose in its enrichment as a study collection has always been to provide an overview as thorough as possible of the art of the ancient Mediterranean world, primarily of Greece and Italy, for those who have not had

—and maybe never will have

—the opportunity to encounter these treasures of a common European cultural heritage. The new relief has taken us one significant step closer to the realization of this ambition: it presents visitors to the museum with a genre of Etruscan art previously not represented in the collection, and it does so through an example which also contributes to a greater understanding of contemporary culture. János György Szilágyi