LOT 0087

Greek Terracotta Amphora Attributed to the Phineus Painter

CHALCIDIAN, CIRCA 525 B.C.

11 in. (1.06 kg, 28 cm).

Piriform body with splayed foot and narrow handles; the neck with slender lotus blossoms and palmettes, Side A) two opposing roosters with a lotus blossom in between, two standing swans flanking, below a youth on horseback holding the reins of a trotting horse, a man and a woman behind the horse; Side B) a grazing deer before an advancing panther looking back, two opposing sphinxes below with their heads turned back and front paws raised. [No Reserve]

Ex Münzen und Medaillen A.G., H. Cahn, Basel, 13 April 1985.
Private collection, Bern, Switzerland.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12643-236366.

Cf. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no.49.113, for a neck-amphora attributed to the Phineus Painter and showing a youth on horseback; s. also Rumpf, Chalkidische Vasen, Berlin, 1927, Taf. 95, and two lost examples, pp. 179 ff.

An important work by the leading master of the 'Chalcidian' workshop, which, despite the name, is not to be located in Chalkis itself but rather in a Chalcidian colony in Magna Graecia (possibly Rhegion). Within the oeuvre of Phineus, who is known for his neck-amphorae, examples with two image zones are very rare—see, for example, the fragmentary amphora in the Faina Collection in Orvieto, with similar sphinxes.