White Painted IV Ovoid Trefoil Jug with Concentric Circles

Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE · White Painted IV ware (possibly Bichrome IV) · Wheel-made · H. c. 23 cm

A tall jug with an egg-shaped body on a narrow ring base, a short neck and a wide, deeply pinched trefoil mouth. The strap handle rises from the rim and drops to the shoulder; its edges and the lip of the mouth are painted dark.

The decoration is laid out in horizontal zones. Two bands ring the neck. On the shoulder sits a single large circle: a heavy black outer ring around a reserved field with a small group of concentric circles at its centre. Below come two broad zones of fine encircling lines between thicker bands, with a pinkish-orange tone showing between some of the lines. A lower frieze repeats the shoulder motif at larger scale, with at least two circles visible in this view, and three heavy bands close the decoration above the plain lower body. The jug has been broken and reassembled, with open cracks across the lower frieze, losses at the back, one visible at the right edge of this view, and dense dark spotting over the surface.

Commentary

The ovoid body, ring base and trefoil mouth identify the piece as one of Gjerstad's Type IV oval jugs with pinched mouth, the form current in Cypro-Archaic I [1]. Its ornament follows the zone system of the period: bands and groups of fine lines divide the body into registers, and the circles are set singly within them.

Each circle has a much thicker outer ring enclosing a plain field and a small central group, a feature Gjerstad noted in his account of the Western circle style of Type IV, which he described chiefly on Bichrome vessels: "The outer line of the concentric circles is sometimes thicker than the others, and the circles are often connected in vertical or horizontal rows" [1]. Gjerstad located this circle style in the western and northern parts of the island, as against the rectilinear style of the east and south [1]. On this jug the circles form a horizontal row in the lower frieze and a single front ornament on the shoulder, a quieter version of the vertical circle systems seen on the larger Bichrome jugs of the same style [3][4].

The closest museum parallel for shape and layout is a White Painted ovoid trefoil jug in the British Museum (1884,1210.309), with bands and concentric circles on the shoulder, dated Cypro-Archaic I [2]. The Walters Art Museum circle-style jug (48.2347) and the Bichrome IV jugs in Turin show the same repertoire in two colours [3][4].

The ware name needs one caveat. The pinkish-orange tone between the fine lines in the middle zones follows the painted bands closely, which raises the possibility that the jug once carried a faded red and should be classed as Bichrome IV. It may equally be staining from burial. Inspection of the surface under a lens and raking light would settle the point; until then we describe it as White Painted IV.

The date follows from the shape and the style: Cypro-Archaic I, c. 750–600 BCE. Jugs of this kind were table pourers and are known almost entirely from tomb groups. The findspot is not recorded. The old repair is crude but has kept the profile complete, so the full decorative scheme can still be read.