SALOTTO ETRUSCO

10 giugno 2025 – 18.00

Eline Verburg
“Etruscans for All: the first Etruscan collections in 19th-century North-western European museums”

Interest in the Etruscans used to be a local Italian phenomenon. In the late 18th and 19th centuries this changed and interest increased in transalpine countries, where early private and public museum collections were created. What were the motivations of these (mostly) national museums to purchase Etruscan collections? This comparative research investigates why interest in the Etruscans emerged in the 19th century in North-western Europe, by studying the earliest Etruscan museum collections of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, the British Museum in London, the Antikensammlung in Berlin and the Louvre in Paris. I will present the preliminary results of the archival research executed in the archives of these museums, in order to shed light on the reception and perception of the Etruscans in 19th century North-western Europe.

Eline Verburg (1993) is lecturer and PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Centre for Ancient Studies and Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam. After an internship at the Museo dell’Agro Veientano she wrote her master’s thesis about the history of the Tomba Campana in Veii. With the ‘National Museum of Antiquities Stipend’ she studied the history of the Corazzi collection of Etruscan bronzes during a stay at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, which led to a publication in BABESCH for which she received the Byvanck Award 2022. Currently, her interest lies in the reception of the Etruscans in 18th and 19th century North-western Europe, which is also the topic of her PhD-research ‘Etruscans for All’ which she plans to finish this year.