Centuripe ware

They have been described, arguably rather unjustly, as "smothered in ornamental colors and shaped too elaborately", an example of Hellenistic "Middle-class taste [that] was often cloying and hideous, sometimes appealing.

Ornamental motifs, dominated by acanthus garlands and architectural friezes, as well as heads and busts, are modelled in three dimensions, usually by moulding, and applied to the surfaces.

[5] The Morgantina treasure, found nearby and now returned from New York to Italy, includes good examples of comparable raised decoration in metal from the 3rd century.

The colours tend to be pastel shades, which can include white, pink, black, blue, yellow, red, gold, rarely also green.

[15] The Dionysic scenes apparently relate to the Dionysian Mysteries, which were growing in importance in this period, in a form offering the hope of rebirth in the afterlife.

The Metropolitan also has a 3rd-century lebes gamikos, a type of vase used as a wedding gift; this has a very basic form, and is painted with a female head.

[21] Especially if this is the case, Centuripe wares come right at the end of significant figurative painting in the long tradition of the pottery of Ancient Greece.