A CAMPANIAN RED-FIGURED NECK-AMPHORA

ATTRIBUTED TO THE LIBATION PAINTER, CIRCA 350-330 B.C.

Details

A CAMPANIAN RED-FIGURED NECK-AMPHORA
ATTRIBUTED TO THE LIBATION PAINTER, CIRCA 350-330 B.C.
The obverse with a veiled female, a hydria on her lap, seated on the plinth of a stele, to the left a standing youth facing left, his head turned back, nude but for a chlamys and a pilos helmet, holding a spear in his left hand, a shield in his right, to the right a standing draped female balancing a box on her head with her left hand, holding a wreath in her right, the stele with decorative bands at the top, the shaft tied with a ribbon and surmounted by a hydria, the stepped plinth draped with ribbons, a black squat lekythos in front; the neck with a standing draped female holding a phiale, her hair bound in a sakkos; the reverse with a standing youth with a himation draped over his left shoulder and around his waist and legs, and a draped female holding a wreath; the neck with a standing draped youth; a band of meander with saltire squares encircling the vase below the scenes, palmettes on the shoulders, vertical lines on the rim, a band of laurel and vertical lines below, elaborate palmettes below the fluted handles, details in added white
23½ in. (59.6 cm.) high

Provenance

French Private Collection, circa 1950.

Lot Essay

For another neck-amphora by the Libation Painter with the same subject, see no. 304e, pl. XXIII, 1-2 in Trendall, The Red-figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily, Third Supplement. According to Trendall (op. cit., p. 199), the scene "may represent Orestes and Electra, since the woman seated at the tomb holds a hydria, as is the usual practice in such scenes, but Pylades is not present and it may be no more than a generic representation of the kind which appears frequently on the vases of this group."

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