Archaeological Museum of Bologna

The skyphos, the oinochoe and the jug, containers used for drinking and pouring wine, belong to a feature production of Magna Graecia, called "Gnathia" ceramic, whose name derives from the ancient city of Egnathia (province of Brindisi) where were found the first samples. Invented during the first half of the 4th century BC, presumably in Taranto in the same workshops in which were produced vases with red figures, includes figurative scenes of great commitment, linked to the theater or to the Dionysian world, in which the combined use of engraving and the three main colors, white, red and yellow, get hight level effects.

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As time went on, however, mass production came to prevail. The scenes were rarefied, replaced by individual figures or objects framed by grapevines and trailing ivy, ultimately leading to the extreme simplification of ornamental models, above all on numerous small- and medium-sized containers (as the ones here presented) and a reduction of the decorated area when gadrooned vases were introduced.

Provenance: Palagi and Brunelli Collections
Datation: Around the second half of the 4th century BC
Material: clay
Dimensions: height cm 10; cm 11,2; cm 22,7
Inventory #: G 515, G 573, G 434 (PU 752, 764, 715)