- chapter 52: The Etruscan painted pottery –
The ceramics decorated with herons are the same shapes as those with simple linear
decoration: this shows that they were probably produced in the same workshops. The
strong similarities between the current and the previous series point out that there were
possibilities for exchanges and contacts, perhaps between workshops responsible for the
production of both series. There is a dichotomy between the district of Caere-Veii and
Tarquinia-Vulci. Tarquinia acts as a hinge between the two spheres of production. In
the map of southern Etruria, the dividing line of distribution between Metopengattung
and Subgeometric pottery runs at Tarquinia. Between 720 and 650 bc starts the
Metopengattung production, repeating Euboean-Cycladic and Late Geometric motifs.
The decoration consists of metopes and checkerboard with diamond; the shapes are
jars, dippers and oinochoai. The Metopengattung production is widespread in Vulci and
Tarquinia in the fi rst half of the seventh century bc. The Metopengattung decoration comes
from the additional decoration present on the vases of the Vulci Biconic workshop and of
the Argive Painter. The Narce Painter (680–675 bc) (Fig. 52.6) is an Attic painter with
Cycladic infl uences who produces in Veii vases decorated with feeding horses and herons.
Some scholars think that he is also a decorator of tombs, such as the Roaring Lions Tomb;
Marina Martelli thinks that the artisan active in the workshop of the Narce painter has
painted the Tomb of the Ducks and the Roaring Lions Tomb (dated between 680 and
675 bc), while S. Neri considers the Tomb of the Roaring Lions to be by a different artist,
active around 700 bc. Recent discoveries in Veii of vases by the Narce Painter, with
independent features, which mark much of the subsequent production of the workshop,
have induced F. Boitani to think that he moved from Caere to Veii, as already suggested
by Dik. During the period of transition between the eighth and seventh centuries bc
in Tarquinia the Painter of the Palms is active; he has assimilated the shapes and the
decorative motifs of the Eastern tradition.
Figure 52.6 Red-on-White biconical urn, Narce tomb 1, early seventh century bc. University of
Pennsylvania Museum MS 2730, image no. 151624. Turfa 2005: no. 16.