Northern Italy, Villanovan culture, ca. 800-700 BC. A black kyathos, a single-handled dipper with an interestingly-shaped conical foot of openwork design. This is a very early example of a vessel shape that would later become highly refined by the Etruscans and then the Greeks, and the handle here, which in later versions towered high above the body of the vessel, is small and looped. The body is made of impasto, a coarse earthenware that is a precursor to Etruscan Bucchero. The Villanovans inhabited Italy during the early Iron Age, and much of what we know of them comes from excavations of cemeteries (the first at Villanova near Bologna in northern Italy) where they cremated the dead and buried them in pottery urns in a very distinctive, double-cone shape. In the 8th century, Greek colonists arrived in the region, and began to influence Villanovan ceramics and their forms, as with this kyathos.Size: L:120mm / W:210mm ; 625gProvenance: United States (Colorado) - Artemis Fallery, Fine Antiquities, Asian, Ethnographic Art Sale, 18 May 2017, lot 20; formerly in private Carlton collection, Los Angeles.