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Lot Essay
As R. Wallace explains (p. 212 in J.M. Padgett et al., The Centaur's Smile, The Human Animal in Early Greek Art), bucchero is "the quintessential Etruscan ceramic fabric distinguished by its black color and burnished surface...first appear[ing] at Cerveteri, in southern Etruria, in the second quarter of the seventh century B.C., having developed from the impasto fabric of the preceding two centuries."
The decoration on this trefoil oinochoe is of especially fine quality, with three tiers of animal friezes incised into the burnished surface. The top tier depicts a horse between two sphinxes each holding a staff in an additional human hand and a gorgon head flanked by horses below the handle; the middle includes a continuous frieze of lions and deer; and the bottom shows lions, rams and griffins. This vase was created during the height of the Orientalizing period in Etruria, which is visible in the adoption of the animal motif from the Near Eastern models. However, this composition, specifically the combination and rendering of the griffin, goats, sphinxes, horses and lions, is unique to the Etruscan style, which is similar to Corinthian and East Greek vase-painting of the period (op. cit., p. 212). For a bucchero kantharos with similar motifs, see no. 41 in op. cit.
The decoration on this trefoil oinochoe is of especially fine quality, with three tiers of animal friezes incised into the burnished surface. The top tier depicts a horse between two sphinxes each holding a staff in an additional human hand and a gorgon head flanked by horses below the handle; the middle includes a continuous frieze of lions and deer; and the bottom shows lions, rams and griffins. This vase was created during the height of the Orientalizing period in Etruria, which is visible in the adoption of the animal motif from the Near Eastern models. However, this composition, specifically the combination and rendering of the griffin, goats, sphinxes, horses and lions, is unique to the Etruscan style, which is similar to Corinthian and East Greek vase-painting of the period (op. cit., p. 212). For a bucchero kantharos with similar motifs, see no. 41 in op. cit.