Stemless kylix (drinking cup),

ca. 325–300 BCE

These objects are examples of Gnathian and Teano ware, types of pottery named for the two major sites of ceramic production in southern Italy that drew inspiration from imported Greek ceramics. Characteristic of both is the delicate use of white slip against a black background and a general focus on vegetal decoration. Pottery produced at Teano, including the stemless cup, often seems like a simpler version of the more elaborate Gnathian ware, such as the storage jar with its delicate flowers and abstracted looping curls that grow out of a bloom to surround a woman’s head. As contemporaneous painters experimented with new techniques, potters working in southern Italy also developed novel forms of embellishment, such as the channels cut into the clay to create evenly ribbed lines on the jug, or the transformation of the cup’s handles into sculpted plant stems through the addition of leaflike curves of clay.