ATTRIBUTED TO THE CHELIS PAINTER, CIRCA 515-500 B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED MASTOID
ATTRIBUTED TO THE CHELIS PAINTER, CIRCA 515-500 B.C.
One side centered by Dionysos walking to the right but looking back, a forked grape vine laden with fruit held forth in his left hand, grasping the handle of a kantharos in his right, clad in a chiton and a chlamys, with a wreath of ivy in his hair, identified by an inscription to the left, the other side centered by an ithyphallic satyr walking to the left, a rhyton in his right hand, a wineskin in his left, a wreath of ivy in his hair, named Methys[e]s (Drunkenness), Leagros kallos in the field before him, between them two groups of an aroused satyr attacking a maenad, all wearing wreaths of ivy, each maenad clad in a chiton and an animal skin tied around her neck, one satyr pulling the hem of the maenad's chiton with his right hand and clutching her arm in his left, the maenad with her head turned back, her hair bound in a sakkos, a thyrsos in her raised left hand, the satyr named Besene, the maenad's name now incomplete, the other satyr grasping the maenad around the waist, the maenad with a thyrsos in her right hand, a snake in her left, the satyr named Terpon (To delight) and the maenad named Kallisto (Prettiest); a band of egg pattern encircling above, details in added red
6 1/8 in. (15.5 cm.) high

Provenance

Charles Gillet (1879-1972), Lausanne; thence by descent to his son, Renaud Gillet (1913-2001), Paris.

Literature

J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Oxford, 1963, p. 1626.
J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 332.
Beazley Archive no. 275051.

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Lot Essay

The Chelis Painter takes his name from two cups signed by Chelis as potter, one in Munich, from Vulci, and one in Naples, from Etruria (see Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, p. 112, nos. 1 and 2). Chelis worked with several painters, including Oltos, the Euergides Painter, the Thalia Painter and the Chelis Painter. Only eight cups have been attributed to the Chelis Painter, five of which were known to Beazley; several are very fragmentary. According to Beazley, part of the Chelis painter's cup in Naples was painted by Oltos, indicating the close relationships within the workshop.

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