AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED KYLIX

CIRCA 470 B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED KYLIX
CIRCA 470 B.C.
The tondo with a nude satyr in profile to the left, standing with his heels raised and his knees bent, bending over with his head and shoulders immersed in a woman's lidded chest, the musculature of his back delineated, his tail curving behind, the chest with the lid propped open, decorated with horizontal lines and starbursts, its foot in the form of a lion paw, ghosts of an inscription in added red in the field, enclosed by a band of meander, ancient repairs including three pairs of drill holes below the rim and a bronze pin rejoining the foot to the bowl
7½ in. (19.1 cm.) diameter; 3 1/8 in. (7.9 cm.) high

Provenance

European Art Market.
European Private Collection, acquired 1995.

Literature

F. Lissarrague in E. Reeder, Pandora, Women in Classical Greece, Baltimore, 1995, fig. 15, p. 100.

Lot Essay

Lissarrague (op. cit. p. 93ff.) discusses the chest as a decidedly feminine object in the Greek world, tied explicitly to a woman's space and the woman's role of "managing material goods of the oikos and in domestic production (p. 100)." The curiosity of the satyr, in spying on the woman's world, places him in a space where he does not belong as he "infringes, once again, on the boundaries shaping Greek society; he cannot resist and dives, head first, in the woman's chest, even if it means losing his head (op. cit. p. 100)."

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