The outside of the strainer is decorted with five panthers in relief, and on the handle is the female figure the Potnia Theron (Mistress of the Animals).
Bucchero-ware pottery was produced from the 7th to the 5th centuries BC in Etruria. It was made from local clay fired in a kiln in a strongly reducing atmosphere (without oxygen), which caused a chemical reaction with the iron oxides in the clay, turning the vase black. The surface of the vase was burnished (polished with a wooden tool) before firing, giving it a lustrous sheen. This was just one way in which this type of pottery imitated metal vessels. The earliest Etruscan bucchero was thin-walled, but over time it became heavier.
