Details

LOT 0079

Attic Red-Figure Bell Krater with Drunken Male Revellers Attributed to the Kadmos Painter

5TH-4TH CENTURY B.C.

14 1/2 in. (3.8 kg, 37 cm wide).

With a high foot, laurel wreath encircling the neck, checkerboard and meander patterns alternating around the lower body, roundels of tongue motif to the handles with palmettes and tendrils below; two red-figure scenes to the body: Side a: a high-quality depiction of a kōmos composed of five figures, including a young man holding a torch, a double flute player next to three dancers, all possibly followers of Dionysus; Side b: three draped figures conversing comprising a central female figure between two opposed male figures, one holding a staff; two old labels: one with 3061-133 on the inner rim, and 113/2 (believed to be an old Christie's lot label from the 1960s by Richard Falkiner) on the sidewall, further old accession numbers 321 and 35 under the base.

Provenance

Thomas Hope (1769-1831), London and the Deepdene, Surrey,
Thence by descent to Lord Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope (1866-1941), the Deepdene.
The Celebrated Collection of Greek, Roman and Egyptian Sculpture and Ancient Vases being a portion of The Hope Heirlooms; Christie's, London, 23-24 July 1917, no.113.
Private collection, acquired in Paris, 2004.

Accompanied by a copy of a thermoluminescence analysis report no.N111j79 from Oxford Authentication.
Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.11786-206517.

Literature

Cf. The Getty Museum, accession number 80.AE.139.1, for a comparable trio of figures on a bell-krater, Lucanian, c.420 B.C.; cf. The Metropolitan Museum, New York, accession number 96.18.37, for a very similar vessel form, Etruscan, early 4th century B.C., accession number 07.286.85, for a depiction of Dionysos on a bell-krater; cf. The British Museum, museum number 1824,0501.18, for a similar form and displaying an ephebi trio.

Footnotes

The Kadmos Painter was an Athenian red-figure vase painter, whose real name is unknown. His nickname was bestowed by Beazley, naming him after the subject of a famous hydria in Berlin (Antikensammlungen Berlin/Altes Museum, found in Vulci). He illustrated many mythological scenes, sometimes with figures arranged up and down the field, usually on bell craters, vessels used in symposia for mixing wine and water. A komos was a ritualistic drunken procession performed by revellers in ancient Greece. It preceded and/or followed the banquet, whether unbridled in nature with music and games, or serious and philosophical.