Decorated bucchero ware bowl (olla)

Etruscan, about 630-600 BC
Probably made in Cerveteri, Lazio, Italy

Bucchero bowl with incised animals

There are only about 100 surviving examples of bucchero ware with incised animal friezes, but they span roughly a century, between 650 and 550 BC. Here we see a lion and a goat with a decorative rosette to the right. The most direct inspiration for the animal friezes was probably incised and repoussé metalwork imported from the Near East, which was then imitated by Etruscan metalworkers. The influence of Corinthian painted pottery can also be seen. This particular shape, the olla, is very much a traditional native Italian form, though its use is uncertain.

M. Bonamici, I buccheri con figurazioni gra (Olschki, 1974)

T.B. Rasmussen, Bucchero pottery from southern (Cambridge University Press, 1979)