An Etruscan Bronze Oinochoe Handle , circa early 5th century B.C.

from an oinochoe with high beaked spout, with arms in the form of couchant felines, slightly convex grip surmounted by a raised thumbrest and decorated with punched lines and dots, and lower attachment in the form of a siren with two pairs of wings, holding her long tresses in her hands, and wearing an incised necklace, her hair falling over her shoulders and festooned across the forehead.

acquired at the Marché aux Puces in Geneva circa 1998

For two closely related examples see Galerie Helbing, Munich, Antike Kleinkunst der Sammlung R. von Passavant-Gontard, December 5th, 1929, pl. 7, no. 40 (current whereabouts unknown), and E. Babelon and J. A. Blanchet, Catalogue des bronzes antiques de la Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1895, p. 584, no. 1449. For the siren’s hair arrangement over the forehead see the oinochoe handle in Ancona (Dedalo, vol. 13, 1933, pp. 278-279), which, with other examples in Berlin and Munich, does not show the siren holding her tresses (see Brown, The Etruscan Lion, p. 124, and pl. XLV, d. 1,2, and T. Weber, Bronzekannen. Studien zu ausgewählten archaischen und klassischen Oinochoenformen in Griechenland und Etrurien, Frankfurt am Main and Bern, 1983, pp. 55-56, n. 1C); also see Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, December 14th, 1978, no. 279.