PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOHN W. KLUGE SOLD TO BENEFIT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

AN APULIAN RED-FIGURED VOLUTE-KRATER

ATTRIBUTED TO THE VIRGINIA EXHIBITION PAINTER, CIRCA 330-300 B.C.

Details

AN APULIAN RED-FIGURED VOLUTE-KRATER
ATTRIBUTED TO THE VIRGINIA EXHIBITION PAINTER, CIRCA 330-300 B.C.
The obverse with an armed warrior in added white beside his rearing horse within an Ionic naiskos, wearing a short red chiton, a crested helmet, holding an oval shield, his greaves hanging behind, a sprouting flower below, the podium with a band of key, a draped female seated to the left with a fan in her raised left hand and a situla in her lowered right, a nude satyr to the right stepping forward onto his bent right leg, holding a thyrsos in his right hand and an oinochoe in his left, a band of palmettes on the shoulders, the neck with Helios clad in a tunic emerging from a blossom amidst elaborate scrolling, a band of laurel centered by a rosette, a band of bead-and-reel, and a band of wave above, ovolo on the rim; the reverse with two draped youths on either side of a filleted stele, the podium with a band of palmettes; a band of stopt meander encircling below, a band of tongues on the shoulders, palmettes on the neck, a band of laurel centered by a rosette and a band of wave above, ovolo on the rim, palmettes below the handles, molded duck heads on the shoulders framing the handles, the volutes with molded gorgon heads, in added white and framed by scrolling on the obverse, in red on the reverse; details in added white, yellow and red
39½ in. (100.3 cm.) high

Provenance

with Royal-Athena Galleries, New York, 1981.

Literature

M. Mayo, ed., The Art of South Italy, Vases from Magna Graecia, Richmond, 1982, no. 73.
A.D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, First Supplement to the Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, London, 1983, no. 28/86b, pls. XXXIII,2 and XXXIV,2. A.D. Trendall, Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London, 1989, no. 268.

Exhibited

Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and elsewhere, The Art of South Italy, Vases from Magna Graecia, 12 May 1982 - 10 April 1983.

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Lot Essay

This extraordinary krater, and the following three, were first publically shown in this country in the extensive and ground-breaking exhibition on South Italian vase painting curated by Maggie Mayo that traveled to Richmond, Tulsa and Detroit in 1982 and 1983. In preparation for that exhibit, Arthur Dale Trendall, the world-renowned expert on western Greek pottery, recognized that despite having examined nearly every Apulian red-figured vase in existence, he had never previously encountered works attributable to the painter of this group. He saw that the workmanship was close to the Painter of Berlin F 3383, a follower of the Baltimore Painter and contemporary of the White Saccos Painter, and that there were "stylistic affinities" with the Arpi Painter. He named this previously unknown painter, accordingly, the Virginia Exhibition Painter. The obverse of all four vases (and a fifth, sold in these rooms with a portion of the collection of John W. Kluge in June 2004) shows one, two or three figures within an Ionic naiskos or aedicula. According to Mayo, p. 197, op. cit., the figures depicted therein, when in added white, may be considered to be sculptures in stone or figures in the afterlife, while those in reserved red-figure are perhaps rather those living in this world.

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