Greek Red-Figure Lekythos

Of square shape, used for making various jewellery elements: small circles, ear-drop pendants, rosettes with striated lines and locating holes on the surface. 114 grams, 63 mm



Collected from 1969-1999. From the collection of the late Mr S.M., London, UK.

Plaques of this type were half of a mould for small objects such as ribbed bobbin-shaped or spherical beads or crescent-shaped pendants. They must have been made for casting, judging by the pouring channels and the circular holes for fixing it to another corresponding half. Ribbed globular and ‘grain of wheat’ gold beads were common in Cyprus and Crete. Similar moulds with pouring channels have been found in the Near East, while open moulds intended for glass ornaments with flat backs have been found in the Aegean.

With inverted echinus lip and tall neck, a ribbed handle to each side with coiling lotus buds and palmettes beneath the handles; Side a) a running winged Gorgon depicted frontally, dressed in a black and red chiton; Side b) an aristocratic warrior wearing a Chalcidian helmet and driving a quadriga, the two central horses superimposed, the other two turned outward; a frieze of lotus buds and a band Greek key motifs below, the neck decorated with red and black palmettes, and elongated lotus blossoms; restored. 3.25 kg, 39 cm high



Acquired in Geneva in 1954. Formerly in the Y. Forrer collection, Geneva, Switzerland. Private collection, Switzerland, 1999. with Gorny & Mosch, Munich, 20 June 2012, no.73. 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 a search certificate number no.11798-206784.

This wonderful vase can be attributed to the Swing Painter, active in Athens during the last part of the 6th century B.C. Beazley named him after the subject of a girl on a swing that he painted more than once. He was a pot painter, perhaps a pupil of the Princeton Painter. His black-figure paintings included a range of mythological subjects and some quite unusual images. A very large number of vases have been attributed to his hand on the basis of style. Characteristic of his paintings are contemporary touches, such as the presence of hoplites, in mythological scenes (München, Staatliche Antikensammlungen 1385 [J 729], Beazley Archive Pottery Database 301590; Poseidon fighting the giant Polybotes, Louvre F226). An important artwork is the famous representation of the Tyrant Pysistratos and his Rabdophoroi (bodyguards armed with clubs, Athens National Archaeological Museum 15111, Beazley Archive Pottery Database 301523).

Mixed group of vessels including biconvex bowl, drum-shaped jar and other types, some with painted ornament. 2.1 kg total, 7.8-18 cm



From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000. From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.