CIRCA 360-350 B.C.

Details

AN APULIAN RED-FIGURED OINOCHOE
CIRCA 360-350 B.C.
8 ¾ in. (22.2 cm.) high

Provenance

Art Market, Geneva, by 1962.
Private Collection, Switzerland, acquired by 1975.
with Phoenix Ancient Art, New York and Geneva, 2006 (The Painter’s Eye: The Art of Greek Ceramics, no. 21).
Acquired by the current owner from the above, 2006.

Literature

A.D. Trendall, "Addenda to Phlyax Vases," Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, vol. 9, 1962, p. 23, no. 125bis, pl. 1, fig. 3.
A.D. Trendall, Phlyax Vases, second edition, London, 1967, p. 66, no. 130, pl. VIII, e.
J. Dörig, ed., Art antique: Collection privées de Suisse Romande, Geneva, 1975, no. 276.
J. Chamay, "Autour d'un vase phlyaque: un instrument de portage," Antike Kunst, vol. 20, pt. 1, 1977, pp. 57-60, fig. 1, pl. 14,1.
T.B.L. Webster, Monuments Illustrating Old and Middle Comedy, third edition (revised and enlarged by J.R. Green), London, 1978, p. 108, no. 130.
H. Metzger, “Bulletin archéologique,” Revue des Études Grecques, vol. 91, 1978, p. 532.
J.M. Padgett, Vase Painting in Italy: Red-Figured and Related Works in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 1993, p. 70.
W.R. Biers and J.R. Green, “Carrying Baggage,” Antike Kunst, vol. 41, pt. 2, 1998, p. 90, pl. 18,1.
B.A. Sparks, “Aristophanes’ Wealth 802-18,” in L. Beaumont, et al., eds., Festschrift in Honour of J. Richard Green, Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 17, 2004, p. 231, n. 5.
J.R. Green, “Pictures of Pictures of Comedy: Campanian Santia, Athenian Amphitryon, and Plautine Amphitruo,” in Green and M. Edwards, eds., Images and Texts: Papers in Honour of Professor Eric Handley, London, 2015, p. 68, n. 48.
E. Günther, Komische Bilder: Bezugsrahmen und narratives Potenzial unteritalischer Komödienvasen, Wiesbaden, 2022, pp. 61-62, n. 180; p. 63, n. 194; pp. 71-72, n. 273; p. 248, n. 124; p. 274, no. 93.

Exhibited

Geneva, Musée Rath, Collections privées de la Suisse Romande, 11 October-7 December 1977.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Hannah Solomon Head of Department, Specialist

hsolomon@christies.com +1 212 636 2256

Lot Essay

Depicted on the body of this oinochoe is a male comic actor (phlyax), with his costume comprising of a short tunic, leggings, and a grinning mask (type B) wreathed in laurel. He steps to the left, carrying a laurel spray in his right hand. A yoke over his left shoulder supports, behind his back, neatly rolled bedding equipment to which has been tied a leg of venison, partly rendered in added white. In front hang a wicker basket and a situla in added white. Dilute glaze is generously used for the mask, costume, basket and bedding. The figure is flanked by laurel trees with white berries, with a short strip of ovolo for the groundline and an ivy wreath around neck, with leaves in added white and incised stems.

The saplings that flank the phlyax suggest that the scene takes place at the entrance to a sanctuary. Laurel was sacred to Apollo, whose famous pursuit of Daphne turned her into a laurel tree. The phlyax’s baggage – bedding, a basket for food and a situla for drink – is documented on vases and terracottas (see W.R. Biers and J.R. Green, op. cit.).

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