Etruscan Red-Figure Stemmed Plate with Head of a Woman

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

2 3/8 x 5 1/4 x 5 1/4 in. (6.1 x 13.3 x 13.3 cm)

This object has the following keywords:

• 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.
• fish plates - Plates of a special form used by the ancient Greeks, having a central depression and sometimes a turned-down rim, used for serving fish. The central depression was used to collect the juice or sauce in which the fish was served. Such fish plates may be made of stone, ceramic, or another material. They may be decorated with highly accurate representations of fish and other marine life. They were popular in Greece and its colonies in South Italy from the 4th century BCE. Athenian painters always oriented the bellies of the fish toward the rim of the plate while southern Italian painters positioned them with the bellies towards the center. Some fish plates have depictions of seafood arranged around a central dip for sauce. Androkydes of Kyzikos was one of the few fish plate painters to sign his work.
• plates - Shallow, usually circular dishes from which food is eaten.
• 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.
• 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: