Etruscan Terracotta Spindle Whorl

Broad squat body with painted bands to the shoulder and two vertical loop handles, broad conical mouth, two lateral tabs with bird-head detailing; repaired. 2.5 kg, 27.5 cm high



From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Capsule-shaped with cylindrical neck and flange rim decorated with pellets; solid coloured band to the shoulder above a frieze of racing hounds; band of pellets below; broad strap handle beneath the rim. 87 grams, 13.1 cm



Ex Ancienne collection, W. Hartmann de Geneva. European private collection.

The body formed as a female bust with elaborately styled hair; discoid foot, tall stem with pinched rim giving a broad pouring lip, strap handle to the rear; some pigment remaining. 446 grams, 22.2 cm high



Old French private collection. Swiss private collection, Basel-Landschaft. Private collection of M. Tritten, Binningen, Switzerland. Property of an East Sussex, UK, gentleman.

The Canosan ceramic workshops produced several series of head vases, starting with a red-figure imitation of the Attic plastic oenochoe attributed by Beazley to Group N.21. The next product combined two ceramic techniques: a) the neck, mouth, and handle were executed in red-figure technique with superimposed white rays on the neck; b) the head was drawn from two moulds, mounted on a base rim, and decorated with white slip and polychrome after firing. It belongs to the initial phase of the polychrome ceramic production of Canosa, for which only this type of mould is known. It also illustrates the close collaboration which existed between potters and coroplasts. The same archetype was used in the next phase, producing entirely polychrome head vases, like this one, in which traces of polychrome are still visible on the mouth and near the left ear.