Greek Terracotta Pedestal Dish

Nearly cylindrical body with a slightly sloping shoulder with five palmettes and eight dots in between; main image showing a Dionysian procession with two advancing nude satyrs facing a young male playing a double pipe, each of the satyrs leaning on a walking stick and having a long garment draped over their shoulders and wearing a fillet and a large wreath on their heads. 649 grams, 29.2 cm



Münzen und Medaillen A.G., H. Cahn, Basel, 24 April 1989. Private collection, Bern, Switzerland. Accompanied by an original thermoluminescence analysis report no.N125q44 by Oxford Authentication. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by a search certificate number no.12641-236375.

The Athena Painter is known as the painter who designed several Greek black-figure pottery works using the 5th-century BC white-ground technique. He specialised in lekythoi and refers to Athena as his main subject in his works. Together with the Theseus Painter, they continued the tradition of painting large lekythoi. His black figures are of high quality, and in addition to lekythoi, he decorated other potteries such as oenochoai. Some archaeologists say that he may have been the same person as the Bowdoin Painter of red-figure pottery, although they may have just worked in the same workshop.

With a bulbous body and low basal ring, tubular neck with pinched trefoil spout and a wide strap handle to the rear; the body decorated with densely arranged circumferential bands, a panel of Greek key motifs on the neck, the handle with horizontal stripes and a central X-motif. 735 grams, 23.7 cm



Swiss private collection, 1980-1990s. 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.12654-236373.

These kinds of geometric oinochoai almost always had spherical bodies, cylindrical necks with trefoil mouths and strap handles from rim to shoulder. They are typical of Attic workshops of the Middle Geometric period (800-750 B.C.).

Matched pair, each a gold open loop with bulb below supporting a silver imitation fig. 12.3 grams total, 41-42 mm



Acquired in the 1980s. Private collection, Switzerland, thence by descent. Private collection, since the late 1990s.