Gnathia style crater

Bell Crater of Greek culture. Gnathia style. Apulia. Magna Grecia. South Italy, second half of the IV- III century BC.
Pottery worked on a potter's wheel. Oxidizing firing, painted and glazed.
In excellent state of preservation. It has undergone a process of restoration and cleaning.
Measurements: 42 x 44 cm.
Vase of wide lip and exvasado with horizontal handles of circular section oriented upwards and with form of inverted bell, varnished in black color in interior and exterior and decorated with vegetable motives, in yellow and white on both sides. The orange rim is decorated with black scrolls. The foot of the crater has an orange line at the junction of the base and at the top of the discoidal foot. The flared-body crater becomes from 450-350 BC the most popular version in Attic workshops. They appear throughout the Mediterranean and are very common in the Iberian necropolises of eastern Andalusia. Their success may be related to their ease of transport. The primary use of the craters in Greece was as containers for wine mixed with water that was drunk during banquets, both festive and funerary. In Iberian environments they are adopted as elements of funerary trousseau and containers for the ashes of the corpse. The ceramics attributed to the "Gnatian style" named after the name of ancient Gnatia (now Egnazia) located on the Adriatic coast of Apulia, are a production of the Hellenistic period with a wide circulation in the Mediterranean basin. The decorative technique used consisted in the application of colors (generally white, yellow and red) on a layer of black varnish. The ornamentation has an artisanal dimension that makes it difficult to find an excellent artistic production and the uniformity of the decorative designs is proof of the tendency to schematize and standardize production. This pottery reached its apogee by being exported to Iberia, Cyrenaica and Egypt. It was imitated in Sicily, Lucania, Campania, finally disappearing around 270 BC.