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

The Christie Painter takes his modern name from a bell-krater formerly at Tapley Park in Devon, the home of the Christie family, although the vase had earlier been in the collection of Thomas Hope at Deepdene, see J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1970, p. 1047, no. 19, sold at Christie's, London, 15 April 2015, lot 84. A follower of Polygnotos, he was a painter of large pots, including calyx-kraters, bell-kraters, stamnoi, pelikai and kalpides. He specialized in scenes of women and of Dionysos, with occasional mythological subjects, including Amazonomachies and pursuit scenes (see Matheson, op. cit., p. 122-128).

Most of his vases that depict women show three figures, as here. At the center is a woman wearing a chiton and himation, her hair in a fillet, seated on a klismos. In her left hand she supports a barbiton, while in her right, she holds the plectron. Behind her stands a woman in a peplos, holding a lyre in her right hand, with her left arm akimbo. On the ground between them is a cista. To the right stands a woman enveloped in her himation, with the hem of her chiton visible below, holding an aulos in her right hand. A festooned taenia hangs above the seated woman. Below the scene is a band of meander with saltire squares; on the neck is a band of elegant palmettes and lotus blossoms; with ovolo on the rim and encircling the handle roots.