Buff-coloured clay covered with a white slip. Painted in black with stylised petals, enclosed by a band. The exterior with a black band and faint traces of spirals.

This style of pottery – known as Cycladic White – developed around 2000 BC. It is characterised by a pale colour and more naturalistic decoration than the earlier Geometric style of Cycladic pottery. Cycladic White was traded widely in the Aegean and considerable quantities have been excavated from Grave Circle B at Mycenae in mainland Greece. The exterior decoration of this bowl is unusual as normally this part of the vessel was left plain.

Provenance

Excavated at Phylakopi, Melos, c. 1899; Thomas Dinham Atkinson (1864–1948), by whom bequeathed to Winchester College in 1948.