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LOT 0059
Greek Silver-Gilt Mask of Silenus
3RD-2ND CENTURY B.C.
1 1/2 in. (3 7/8 in.) (9.4 grams, 37 mm (160 grams total, 98 mm high including stand)).
Naturalistically modelled in repoussé as the mature and frowning face of the god Silenus; accompanied by a custom-made display stand.
ProvenanceEx old English collection.
London art market, 1980s.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.11849-207741.
Cf. The Dallas Museum of Art, object number 1991.75.74.3, for a broadly comparable mask in gold.
FootnotesIn Greek mythology, Silenus was a god of the forest, associated with musical creativity, ecstatic dance and drunkenness. He was also a prophet and a bearer of dire wisdom. When the god Dionysus was born from the thigh of Zeus, Hermes took the infant to live with Silenus, where he was raised together with local nymphs in a cave on mount Nysa. Silenus was frequently present in the train of Dionysus, fought with the latter against the giants, and accompanied him on his adventures.
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AUCTIONS:
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South Italian Black-Glazed Miniature Hydria
4th century B.C.Estimate: £2,000 - 3,000 (‡+bp*)
Opening Bid: £1,000
Decorated with ribbed fluting around the body and broad shoulder, slender neck with stepped and everted rim and mouth, two handles to the equator, a carry handle between neck and shoulder to the rear, discoid foot; repaired. 232 grams, 16.5 cm high
Private collection. Anonymous sale, Eve Auctions, Paris, December 11, 2013, lot 11. -
Campanian Red-Figure Neck-Amphora with Cavalryman
340-330 B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £10,400
The piriform body with broad, stepped rim and two round-section handles; red-figure frieze depicting two standing women facing, wearing a himation and stephane; the other side with a nude standing warrior wearing an Apulo-Corinthian helmet, holding the reins of his horse, acanthus leaves, ovolo and wave motifs to the neck and lower body; probably from a Cuma workshop. 1.55 kg, 40.2 cm high
Ex private collection Mr S., Geneva, by inheritance. Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato. Accompanied by an original thermoluminescence analysis report no.N123k3 from Oxford Authentication. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.11784-206515.
The illustration of the horse is noteworthy: contemporary descriptions speak about the Sicilian horses as 'generous, swift and with firm foot' (Aeneid III, 704). The Oscan poet Lucilius of the 2nd century B.C. quotes the Campanian chargers as ‘fiery and brave although not very fine in their look’. The artistic evidence, like here, depicts well-built horses with fine legs suitable for middle-light cavalry. -
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Greek Red-Figure Fragment with Athletes Attributed to the Euaion Painter
Circa 460 B.C.Sold for (Inc. bp): £3,900
From a kylix, the inside painted with two young naked athletes within a medallion, conversing and cleaning their bodies with a strigil, the edge of the medallion decorated with a series of meanders and four crosses; the outside with two naked athletes and other figures, divided by foliage ornaments and volutes. 121 grams, 15.2 cm
Acquired in before 2005. Private collection, Europe. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.11805-206818.
The Euaion painter was a prolific artist of about 460 B.C. His painting - already in the manneristic period of the Attic red figures vases - was more nearly classical in style, although the ancestry of his small-headed, slim figures, is very evident. He introduced a high, sometimes patterned ground line for an upright two-figure group, and preferred the old elaborately patterned borders for tondos and the ground lines outside cups.
