ATTRIBUTED TO THE GROUP OF FERRARA T.981, CIRCA 460 B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED SKYPHOS
ATTRIBUTED TO THE GROUP OF FERRARA T.981, CIRCA 460 B.C.
6 in. (15.2 cm.) high

Provenance

Kunstwerke der Antike, Auktion XXVI, Münzen und Medaillen, Basel, 5 October 1963, lot 141.
Private Collection, Paris, acquired by 1971.
Un hôtel particulier en Normandie: Les collections d'un aventurier, Beaussant-Lefèvre & Associés, Paris, 3 December 2022, lot 35.

Literature

J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figured Vase-Painters, second edition, vol. II, Oxford, 1963, vol II, p. 1676, no. 8bis.
J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 436, no. 8bis.
C. Bérard, et al., eds., Images et société en Grèce ancienne : l'iconographie comme méthode d'analyse, Lausanne, 1987, p. 146, fig. 1.
N. Dietrich, Figur ohne Raum? Bäume und Felsen in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr., Berlin, 2010, p. 443, fig. 368.
Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 275423.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Hannah Fox Solomon Head of Department, Specialist

hsolomon@christies.com +1 212 636 2256

Lot Essay

One side depicts a woman seated on a rock, clad in a peplos and himation and wearing a diadem, with a thyrsos before her. The other side features a similarly clad woman wearing a saccos gesturing toward a thrysos leaning on an outcrop. While the thyrsos connects the women to the realm of Dionysos, C. Bérard (op. cit.) suggests that they have not yet completed the rites that would officially place them in the company of the god. They are candidates waiting in anticipation and preparation to join his retinue, with the thyrsos before them symbolizing their aspirations.

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