Getty Museum

Olpe

Date

640–620 B.C.

Medium

Terracotta

Culture

Etruscan

Department

Vessels

Institution

Getty Museum

Around the belly of this Etruscan olpe (pitcher) is a procession of animals, including aquatic birds, a grazing goat, and a leaping feline or dog attacking a boar. An animal with hackles along its back, massive haunches, thick snout, and short tail may be a bear, which is rare in Etruscan art. In the 600s B.C., a variety of artistic influences from the eastern Mediterranean shaped the arts of Etruria and central Italy. Phoenician traders brought metal vessels from the Near East decorated with rows of exotic animals and plants. Greek traders brought pottery from the city of Corinth. This olpe shows a blending of these foreign artistic approaches and the native Etruscan pottery tradition. The unknown Etruscan potter may have borrowed the row of walking animals directly from a vessel imported from the Near East, or the idea may have filtered through the intermediary of Corinthian vase-painting, which had also adopted such Near Eastern motifs. The olpe shape derives directly from Corinthian pottery, along with the scale-pattern decoration on the vase's shoulder. The Etruscan potter reproduced these foreign elements in the local bucchero ware, a black ceramic that was burnished to a glossy sheen.

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