LOT 0066

Campanian Red-Figure Bail Amphora from a Cumae Workshop

330-300 B.C.

14 1/2 in. (862 grams, 37 cm high).

A ceramic red-figure bail amphora with round-section strap handle and pierced lug at the apex, tall waisted neck with vertical rib detailing, rounded shoulder with running wave pattern ornament, tapering body with figural designs of standing females wearing a himation and a stephane in red and white on black ground, one figure holding a thyrsus and the other an ear of corn, with accessories in the field; flared base; from a workshop in Cumae.

Ex collection H.& P. Payot, Clarens, by descent.

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.11577-199027.
Accompanied by an original thermoluminescence analysis report no.QED2223/SG0-0105 from QED Laboratoire.

Cf. similar items in Museum of the Fine Arts in Budapest, inventory number 50.250; the British Museum, London, under accession number 1772,0320.77, in Trendall, A.D., The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily, Oxford, 1967, no.4 p.353; for another bail amphora with similar motif see p.322, no.706, pl.12; Ede, C., Images, London, 2019, pp.49, 101.

The bail amphora, named for the tall handle arching over the mouth, was a shape made primarily in Campania, where red-figure vases were produced at both Capua and Cumae in the 4th century B.C. The decoration offered a remarkable range of subjects associated not only with mythological images, but with representations of the local life, costumes and customs. The simple, single figure compositions decorating each side of this vase are also characteristic of the style, which tended to avoid complex mythological scenes often found on much larger vessels like volute craters, favouring representation of the daily life of south Italic people.