ATTRIBUTED TO THE COLMAR PAINTER, CIRCA 500-480 B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED KYLIX
ATTRIBUTED TO THE COLMAR PAINTER, CIRCA 500-480 B.C.
The tondo with a youthful komast moving to the right, nude but for a chlamys draped behind him and over his arms, a thick fillet in his hair, looped at the back with the ends hanging down onto his shoulder, with a knobbed walking stick in his lowered right hand, holding a skyphos out before him in the palm of his left hand, a column-krater to the right decorated with a band of ivy, LYSIS KALOS in the field in added red; enclosed by a band of stopt meander
9 3/8 in. (23.8 cm.) diameter, excluding handles

Provenance

Auktion III, Ars Antiqua, Lucerne, 29 April 1961, no. 102, pl. 43.
A Private Collection of Important Greek Vases; Christie's, London, 28 April 1993, lot 10.

Literature

J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Oxford, 1963, p. 357, no. 65 bis, p. 1597, no. 4 bis., and p. 1647.
Beazley Archive Database no. 203747.
Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions Database no. 4763.

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Lot Essay

According to J.D. Beazley (Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, p. 352), the earliest works of the Colmar Painter "are very close to those of the Bonn Painter. His developed style was formed under the influence of Onesimos (in both stages of the artist's career) and the Antiphon Painter. He probably sat side by side with them in the workshop of Euphronios."

It has been postulated (see J.K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600-300 B.C., pp. 359-361) that the Lysis praised on this cup and some 26 others listed by Beazley (op. cit., pp. 1597-1598) may be the grandfather of the Lysis from Plato's Dialogues, and whose grave monument, a marble loutrophoros, was discovered in 1974. The family connection was disputed by others (see R.S. Stroud, "The Gravestone of Socrates' Friend, Lysis", in Hesperia, vol. 53, Issue 3, p. 357, n. 7).

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