LOT 0085

Proto-Corinthian Painted Terracotta Aryballos

7TH CENTURY B.C.

4 1/8 in. (79 grams, 10.5 cm).

Comprising a piriform body and a tubular neck with a wide rim, a strap handle to the rear, the rim with painted polychrome petals, the pattern repeating beneath the neck and on the base of the vessel; the body decorated with fishscale decoration.

Swiss private collection, assembled in the 1960s and 1970s.
Acquired by the present owner in 2004.

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 search certificate number no.30017-246794.

Cf. for similar aryballoi, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession nos.37.128.1 and 07.286.38; cf. also Anderson, J.K., ‘The Corinthian Pottery’ in Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol.53/54 (1958/1959), pp.138-151, no.84 pl.24; Saka A. and Aktaş R., ‘A group of archaic pottery from Çandarli at the Izmir Archaeological Museum in Gürtekin Demir R.G., Cevizoğlu, H., Polat Y. & Polat G. (eds), Archaic and Classical Western Anatolia: New Perspectives in Ceramic Studies, Proceedings of the second Keramos international conference at Ege University, Izmir, 3–5 June, 2015, Leuven – Paris – Bristol, 2018 cat.12-13 p.272; a lower portion of a similar Proto-Corinthian piriform aryballos was found in Sardis, see Sardis Museum inventory no.P61.252, and Schaeffer, J., Monograph 10: The Corinthian, Attic, and Lakonian Pottery from Sardis, Harvard, 1997, cat.no.48; for a comprehensive list of other examples in public and private collections see the fundamental work of Neeft, C.W., Protocorinthian Subgeometric Aryballoi (Allard Pierson Series, vol. 7), Amsterdam, 1987, pp. 282f., list 274, CX, CXI, CXIII, CXIV: NC 478A type1; on the scale patterns in general, ibid. pp.275-289.

The aryballoi were used to hold perfumed oil, an essential item for the wealthy middle classes of the time. Similar piriform vases are fairly common in Corinthian contexts. There is utmost precision in both the potting and the execution of the incised scale pattern of the present example. The fish-scale decoration was realised with the incision technique, by executing the scales neatly with their ends meeting.