Etruscan bucchero ware chalice, c.625-550 BC
Terracotta
Height: 11.3cm diameter: 12.6cm
11803 IVP
£ 3,600
With a finely polished silvery-black surface, the cup is wide mouthed and set on a tall, hollow, conical foot. The body decorated with a band of three incised grooves, a...
With a finely polished silvery-black surface, the cup is wide mouthed and set on a tall, hollow, conical foot. The body decorated with a band of three incised grooves, a further groove above the notched carination. Intact with a few scattered losses, a roughened area inside the cup probably from manufacture or firing. Underneath a white paper collection label with 'CV- I -82' in black ink.
Bucchero is a pottery fabric unique to Etruria. It is made from a well refined clay, fired in the kiln under 'reducing' conditions, that is to say starved of oxygen, so that the pottery becomes dark grey throughout. The surface developed a natural gloss though sometimes this was enhanced by burnishing. Two main periods of production are generally accepted: Bucchero Sottile, the fine bucchero from the south produced between c.660 and 560 BC and the coarser Bucchero Pesante, the production of which centred on Chiusi in the north produced c.560-480 BC.
Bucchero is a pottery fabric unique to Etruria. It is made from a well refined clay, fired in the kiln under 'reducing' conditions, that is to say starved of oxygen, so that the pottery becomes dark grey throughout. The surface developed a natural gloss though sometimes this was enhanced by burnishing. Two main periods of production are generally accepted: Bucchero Sottile, the fine bucchero from the south produced between c.660 and 560 BC and the coarser Bucchero Pesante, the production of which centred on Chiusi in the north produced c.560-480 BC.
Provenance
Victor Emile Gabriel Chevallier (1889-1969) and his wife Marguerite Jeanne Verel (1887-1962), France; thence by descent
Mr. X, France; by descent from the above in 1969, thence by descent again through two estates
