Details

LOT 0685

Greek Apulian Red-Figure Volute Krater with Medusa Heads and Ladies of Fashion

4TH CENTURY BC

26" (9 kg, 66 cm).

A fine and large volute krater of Magna Graecian workmanship; to the neck, a profile female bust between two scrolling motifs; a foliate band below the rim enlivened with dots of ochre slip; the everted rim with a pendant wave pattern to the underside; the exterior rim red with vertical black trails; below the rim, a row of six rosettes and a pattern of alternating pellets and pairs of trails; to the underside of the rim, a pendant wave pattern in black against a red backround; the exterior rim with wave pattern enlived with pale slip; the tall strap handles flanked by loops fashioned as arching swan heads; surmounted by volutes with white and yellow painted mascaroons styled as heads of Medusa on the front, the snakes in white slip, and reserved mascaroons on the reverse; Side A: an image of a seated fair-haired nude youth with three spears in the left hand, sword and scabbard in the right hand, reclining on a draped stool with shield leaning against the supporting column of an arch, flanked by a seated nude male with stephane and and spear and a standing female in a chiton with a hand-mirror; Side B: a column with draped ribbons in black and white, a skyphos above flanked by a seated female with wreath and casket and a nude male with staff, palmette to the neck; beneath each handle a volute palmette.

Provenance

From the estate of a deceased North Country collector, acquired Astarte Gallery, Mayfair, UK, in the 1980s.

CONDITION