AN ATTIC POTTERY FIGURAL OINOCHOE
AN ATTIC POTTERY FIGURAL OINOCHOE
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PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT NEW YORK ESTATE
AN ATTIC POTTERY FIGURAL OINOCHOE

ATTRIBUTED TO CLASS G: THE LONDON CLASS, CIRCA 490-480 B.C.

Details
AN ATTIC POTTERY FIGURAL OINOCHOE
ATTRIBUTED TO CLASS G: THE LONDON CLASS, CIRCA 490-480 B.C.
7 ½ in. (19 cm.) high
Provenance
with Peter Sharrer Ancient Art, New York.
Private Collection, New York, acquired from the above, 1997; thence by descent to the current owner.

Brought to you by

Hannah Fox Solomon
Hannah Fox Solomon Head of Department, Specialist

Lot Essay

Athenian vases molded in the form of a head were classified by J.D. Beazley in his 1929 article “Charinos” in The Journal of Hellenic Studies (vol. 49, pt. 1). The shapes were chiefly kantharoi, oinochoai and aryballoi, sometimes janiform, and typically in the form of a female head, an African (male or female), a satyr, Dionysos, or Herakles.

The oinochoe presented here is in the form of the head of Dionysos, and belongs to Beazley’s Class G: The London Class, named for a kantharos in the British Museum with janiform female heads, the red-figured bowl of which is attributed to the Brygos Painter (see pl. 33C(A) in M. Wegner, Brygosmaler). Here, the god is depicted with a spade-shaped beard in added white with wavy lines in black, a smooth roll of the hair in added red, surmounted by a stephane in added white with black geometric ornament. The style is close to an example from Corinth, now in the Musée Antoine-Vivenel, Compiègne, pl. 18,9 in M. Flot, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Musée de Compiègne. Of that example, Beazley (op. cit. p. 49) suggests that it was made from the same mold used for making female heads, the figure transformed into Dionysos by the addition of the beard.

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