Etruscan Red-Figure Skyphos (Cup) with Heads of Satyr and Woman (?)

Classical-Hellenistic
4th century BCE - 3rd century BCE

3 3/4 x 3 7/8 x 6 1/16 in. (9.6 x 9.8 x 15.4 cm)

This object has the following keywords:

• cups - Open bowl-shaped vessels, used chiefly for drinking, often having one handle, but sometimes two handles or none, generally on a low foot-ring; also includes similar bowl-shaped vessels, generally without handles, resting on a stem and supported by a spreading foot. Occasionally made with a lid.
• Etruscan - Culture and style of artistic production in Etruria, now modern Tuscany and part of Umbria, between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE. Known partly from elaborate tumuli, artworks include bronze mirrors and cists, wall paintings, and terracotta and bronze sculptures that are distinct from the Greek Archaic style in their lively sense of movement and delicate decoration. Developments in architecture include the construction of mud brick and wooden temples decorated with terracotta roof tiles and statues. In some classification schemes Etruscan culture includes the Villanovan culture, which was first evident on the Italian peninsula in the ninth century BCE.
• palmette - Motif resembling a stylized erect leaf divided into lobes, in the form of a fan or palm leaf, often supported by spirals. Its origins are obscure, but similar motifs are first recorded in Syria and Mesopotamia and in the islands of the eastern Mediterranean by the 2nd millennium BCE. As the name suggests, it may have been derived from representations of palm-trees, especially in view of the belief that a tree cult may have existed in western Asia in association with the introduction of the cultivated date-palm; however, it has much in common with other early floral and spiral motifs. The motif is common in classical and classicizing styles, used either individually or along with other conventionalized flower or foliage forms, for example, in an anthemion.
• portraits - Representations of real individuals that are intended to capture a known or supposed likeness, usually including the face of the person. For representations intended to be anonymous, or of fictional or mythological characters, see "figures (representations)."
• Red-figure - Refers to a style of Greek vase painting that developed from the Black-figure style. It appeared in Athens around 530 BCE and spread to other areas of Greece, southern Italy, Etruria, and elsewhere in the Mediterranean area, until it disappeared in the third century BCE. The style is characterized by a particular technique, which involves the use of refined slip and a two-phase firing process to create a black ground through sintering, with figures reserved in red. The details of the figures are more fluid than in the Black-figure style, and are typically drawn with a brush, using both a defined, black relief line and a more dilute line that varies in color from dark gold to black.
• Satyrs and Maenads - Maenads are human female followers of Dionysus (sometimes called Nymphai) - Note added June 2010 by M. Weldon.
• skyphoi - A type of drinking vessel in the shape of a deep cup, usually with two horizontal handles attached to the lip and a small integral foot. In all-black or unglossed plain wares the skyphos was the most common type of cup.
• vase paintings - Refers to two-dimensional decoration applied to pottery by using paint made of metallic oxides or other pigments held in suspension in slip or another medium. The term is particularly used to refer to Ancient Greek red- and black-figure works. See also "porcelain paintings (visual works)."
• women - Refers to female human beings from young adulthood through old age.

This object is a member of the following portfolios: