Pottery perfume bottle (alabastron), attributed to the Pescia Romana Painter

This perfume-bottle is decorated with polychrome painting representing a warrior, a panther, birds and floral decoration. The warrior may be wearing a mask as face protection and it has been suggested that such masks were later attached to anthropomorphic (human-shaped) cinerary urns (containers for the cremated remains of the dead). The vase is attributed to the Pescia Romana Painter, a master potter who set up a workshop in Vulci in the sixth century BC. For nearly a century, between about 630 and 540 BC, pottery that had been imported from Corinth acted as inspiration for Etruscan potters and vase-painters. It is likely that immigrant craftsmen began local manufacture. The main centres of production were Cerveteri and Vulci, both in Southern Etruria.