Black Topped Red Ware Vase

The archaeological section, which includes pieces datable between 4000 B.C. and the fifth century A.D., reflects the peculiarities of Vitali’s collecting, very attentive to the quality of individual pieces but far from the rigidity of academic classifications, more interested in an emotional and passionate approach to the works than in philological documentation. What interested Vitali was the possibility of discerning within an ancient work assonances with contemporary sensibility; he appreciated, therefore, artifacts executed in the most diverse materials and belonging to different eras and areas, united by a very high quality and an extraordinary evocative capacity.

The red black-banded Naqada I vase in question belongs to the most important civilization of prehistoric Egypt, which flourished during the first half of the fourth millennium BCE. The clay pot is handmade with engobe and double-fired.