LOT 0105

Attic Red-Figure Fragment Attributed to the Thaliarchos Painter

5TH CENTURY B.C.

5 in. (95 grams, 12.5 cm).

Comprising the bottom part of a cup-skyphos or pyxis, decorated with concentric circles in red and black, the internal part painted with the image of a young athlete, wrapped in a short chlamys and leaning upon his staff, the ground represented as a concave space.

Acquired in Europe before 1990.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11810-206516.

Cf. Boardman, J., Athenian Red Figure Vases. The Archaic period, London, 1975, fig.81.

The everyday life of ancient Greeks is well represented on the Attic red figure paintings. The short cloak (chlamys) is the favourite garment for the men and the hair of the younger men is more often shown cropped than in the black Attic figure paintings. The nakedness of youths exercising at the palaistra could well have been an important source of inspiration for the Greek artists who were becoming increasingly aware of the possibilities to represent the physiology of subtle movement in paintings. The Thaliarchos painter is generally recognised as the artist of the tops of some powder-box pyxides, although it is not excluded that he was actively painting various types of vessels. The type of ground and the way in which the foot of the man is worked can support the thesis that the fragment is from his workshop.