LATE 6TH CENTURY B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC BLACK-FIGURE NECK-AMPHORA WITH MARINE FAUNA
LATE 6TH CENTURY B.C.
Side A: two octopods surrounded by leaping dolphins and a tunny fish
Side B: a central octopod with crabs, surrounded by dolphins, with two tunny fish beneath
The handles flanked by swans with outstretched wings, bands and stripes around the lower body with rays above the foot, the neck with a double palmette chain, a dipinto in light red paint on the underside of the foot: "HE", repaired
10 5/8 in. (27 cm.) high

Provenance

Galerie Arete, Zurich.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

PUBLISHED:
Animals, 1981, I, no. 103; and Noah's Ark, 1997, no. 6.

This amphora is unique among Greek black-figure vases in having no myth or human figures, but teeming instead with the variety of life in the surrounding sea. In a teasing moment, the vase's painter posed the crab with claws ready to grab at the feet of one of the birds. The bird got away, of course.

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