Gorgon Terracotta Mask

Mask of Gorgon, terracotta detail reconstructed from a metope from the Temple of Selinunte (575 - 570 BC), Palermo, National Museum.

Medusa Gorgon was a monstrous figure of Greek mythology with snakes for hair, who could turn anyone who looked into her eyes to stone. She was linked to the myth of Perseus, who killed her by cutting off her head; Medusa was the only mortal Gorgon.

The Greeks and Romans placed images of Gorgons, Fauns and Sileni outside their homes to protect the entrances. Their monstrous features and tongues displayed in defiance were intended to frighten malevolent entities.

"The metope, the work of indigenous artists, belonged to the decoration of the temple C of Selinunte, sacred to Apollo. Medusa, at least according to the fragments found in 1823 and recomposed in Palermo, also stood out in the pediment of the sacred building, a fact not uncommon considering the illustrious precedent of the Temple of Artemis in Corfu (590 BC ca.); however, while in Corfu the Corinthian iconography of Medusa was fully respected (Cf. work entry 02), in the pediment of the temple of Selinunte it was limited only to the face / mask. The metope with respect to the pediment, devoid of any narrative cue, represents Perseus, who, escorted by Athena, is about to behead Medusa. While the divinity and the hero have human traits, Medusa fully responds to the Corinthian model, which in Sicily finds a famous attestation in the Syracusan terracotta of about half a century earlier (cf.work entry 02): she is depicted with her mouth widened and her tongue on her chin, holding Pegasus or Chrysaore under her right arm and running on her knees. The artist, by compressing the three figures within a rectangular perimeter, has composed a sculptural counterpart to the paintings of the contemporary painted ceramics, which probably constitutes the most direct reference model. "

Lorenzo Riccardi

Scare your enemies with the old-style Medusa decoration!

• Material: terracotta, handmade
• Suitable for indoors and outdoors
• Dimensions: 4.72 × 5.51 × 1.97 in (12 × 14 × 5 cm)
• Weight: 290 g

Product in Italy

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