Lot 84

PROPERTY FROM THE TAPELEY PARK COLLECTION The following eight vases come from Tapeley Park, Devon, the home of the Christie family. This distinguished collection includes three important vases formerly in the Hope collection, acquired at Christie’s in the famous 1917 auction of the Hope Heirlooms. Many of the Hope vases were acquired from the 18th Century excavations carried out by the British Minister at Naples, Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803). Hamilton amassed two great collections of ancient pottery during this period, the first of which he sold to the British Museum in 1772. The second, amassed between 1772 and 1795, he sold to Mr Thomas Hope in 1801, for 4500 guineas, and included the present Lot 84. The collection at Tapeley is notable not only for its esteemed heritage, but for the lively scenes of the Attic red-figure examples.

AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED BELL-KRATER

ATTRIBUTED TO THE CHRISTIE PAINTER, CIRCA 440-420 B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED BELL-KRATER
ATTRIBUTED TO THE CHRISTIE PAINTER, CIRCA 440-420 B.C.
The obverse with a komos scene, with three male figures walking to the right, nude save for a cloak around the shoulders and with wreaths in their hair, the first carrying a staff in his left hand, his head turned back, the central figure playing the double-auloi, the last figure, gazing upwards and playing a kithara, inscribed 'KALOS' in the field between the heads of the second and third figures; the reverse with three himation-clad youths, the outer two holding staffs, the central figure with a ball; band of meander and crossed squares encircling below, palmettes under the handles, laurel below the rim
11½ in. (29.3 cm.) high

Provenance

Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), Naples and London.
Thomas Hope (1769-1831), London and Deepdene; and thence by descent to Lord Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope (1866-1941), Deepdene, Surrey, UK.
Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Greek, Roman & Egyptian Sculpture and Ancient Greek Vases, Being a Portion of The Hope Heirlooms; Christie's, London, 23-24 July 1917, lot 80.
Tapeley Park, Devon, UK, acquired at the above sale.
Beazley archive no. 213588.

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Lot Essay

PUBLISHED:
W. Tischbein, Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases now in possession of Sir William Hamilton, Naples, 1791-1795, vol. I, pl. 50.
E. M. W. Tillyard, The Hope Vases, Cambridge, 1923, pl. 23, no. 138.
J. D. Beazley, Attische Vasenmaler des rotfigurigen Stils, Tubingen, 1925, p. 401, no. 9.
J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1970, p. 1047, no. 19.
S. B. Matheson, Polygnotos and Vase Painting in Classical Athens, Madison, 1995, p. 124, pl. 109A.

The present piece is the name-vase of the Christie painter, a notable Attic vase painter identified by Sir John Beazley and named after the family of Tapeley Park, Devon.

This vase presents a lively scene of a komos, the drunken, sometimes ritualistic, procession thought to have been performed at city festivals, symposia, and perhaps as part of wedding celebrations. The revellers, komasts, are often shown playing music, as here: the central figure plays the double-auloi, and is followed by a youth playing the kithara, a lyre-type instrument. The three young men are denoted ‘KALOS’ (????S) meaning ‘beautiful’, by an inscription above. Arguably the most famous komast was the Athenian general Alcibiades, who gatecrashed Plato’s Symposium (212) after roaming the streets with his merry band of inebriated youths.

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