Etruscan Pottery Bucchero Ware: Bucchero kantharos

Inv. No.: 82.021
Provenance: Etruria
Date: first half 6th century BC
Height: 83 mm (to rim); 157 mm (to top of handles)
Width: 110 mm (bowl); 190 mm (including handles)
 
This cup has a low wide bowl with a straight lip that flares from a sharp carination. The base has slightly rounded sides and is set on a flaring foot with a short stem. The foot is hollow underneath and the potter has not removed the throwing marks. The fine ridges contribute a decorative touch. The high vertical ribbon handles, one on each side of the vase, pass steeply upwards from the rim, turn over sharply at the top and pass down to join the sides of the bowl with the outside edges of the handles flowing smoothly into the base at the level of the carination. Each handle is embellished at the top with a single boss and the interior surface of each handle has similar incised geometric decoration. Incised patterns are also found on the outside of the bowl, below the rim and on the carination. The vase varies from dark grey/brown to dark grey/black in colour. Much of the surface is shiny and in very good condition, especially the interior of the bowl, but there is also some surface incrustation and some slight scratches and abrasion. One of the handles has been broken in four places, but is carefully repaired, and there is a chip missing from the rim. The shape (Rasmussen Type 3e encompassing Ramage Types 5 B, 5 C and 5 D) is very common (although the decoration of this example is unusual). It is perhaps derived from metal cups and influenced a shape produced by Attic potters.

Function:
A drinking cup.

Manufacture:
The bowl and the stemmed foot have been thrown separately and the handles have been made by hand with all sections being joined together, using slip, at the pieces began to harden. After the decorative patterns were incised, the surface was coated with a wash or slip or perhaps burnished and the vase was fired in a reducing atmosphere.

Decoration:

1. The outside of the rim has an incised zigzag pattern more or less enclosed between horizontal straight lines (some of the zigzags cross over the horizontal lines) on each side of the vase, between the handles.
2. Also between the handles, on each side of the vase the carination is decorated with diamond notches of varying sizes.
3. The bosses at the top of the handles take the form of a conical knob set in a round base.
4. The incised decoration on the interior surface of the handles consists of a pair of double incised straight lines running down the edges of each handle, commencing just below the boss at the top and finishing in an outward curling flourish just below the rim on the inside surface of the bowl. At three places, roughly evenly spaced along each handle, horizontal zigzags enclosed between horizontal straight lines connect the outer vertical double incised lines.

Bibliography:
Etruscan Pottery, Charles Ede catalogue, June 1982, No. 6.

Hill, D. K., "The Technique of Greek Metal Vases and its Bearing on Vase Forms in Metal and Pottery", American Journal of Archaeology, LI (1947), 248-256.

Ramage, N. H., "Studies in Early Etruscan Bucchero", Papers of the British School at Rome, XXXVIII (1970), especially 27-29.

Rasmussen, T. B., Bucchero Pottery from Southern Etruria, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979, especially 104-106, 132 (where it is suggested that this sort of zigzag pattern is rare on bucchero) and 146-147.

Spivey, N., "Greek vases in Etruria", Looking at Greek Vases, eds. T. Rasmussen and N. Spivey, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 131-150, especially 139-141 (Etruscan vase shapes produced in Greece).

Villard, F., "Les canthares de bucchero et la chronologie du commerce étrusque dxportation", Hommages à Albert Grenier, Bruxelles-Berchem, Latomus, revue d'etudes latines, 1962, Volume 3, 1625-1635.

Comparanda:
Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Italia 16, Museo Comunale Umbri 1, IV B kV B l, Tavola 8, 8 (similar shape; from Necropoli di San Pietro in Campo, Fondo Alterocca, Tomba I).

Cristofani, M., Civiltà degli etruschi, Milano, Electa, 1985, 8.9 3 (very similar shape without decoration except for notched carination; early 6th century BC).

De Puma, R., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA 31, The J. Paul Getty Museum 6 (1996), Pl. 325, 1 (Rasmussen Type 6 kantharos from Vulci with similar handles; c. 570-550 BC) and 2 (Type 3e fragment with similar bowl shape; c. 575-550 BC).

Frère, D., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, France 36, Nantes 1 (1997), Pl. 41, 4 (similar shape; c. 590-560 BC).

Hayes, J. W., Etruscan and Italic Pottery in the Royal Ontario Museum: A Catalogue, Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, 1985, C22 (early 6th century BC) and C23 (probably 575-550 BC) (both are plain versions of the same shape with arched notching on the carination).

Moignard, E., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 18, Glasgow (1997), Pl. 57, 5 and 6 (both are a similar shape, but undecorated except for notched band on carination; late 7th century BC [5] and late 7th or early 6th century BC [6]).

Pryce, F. N., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 10, British Museum 7 (1932), IV B a, Pl. 23, 26-28, especially 27 (similar shape, but undecorated except for notched band on carination).

Ramage, N. H., "Studies in Early Etruscan Bucchero", Papers of the British School at Rome, XXXVIII (1970), Fig. 19, 5 (Type 5 B).

Rasmussen, T. B., Bucchero Pottery from Southern Etruria, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979, Pl. 31, 166 and 167; Pl. 32, 168-172 (all Type 3e).