Attic white-ground lekythos – characteristics of the Reed Painter

 

Culture

Greek, Attic, 500 – 400 B.C.

Size

22,5 cm

Provenance

Private Dutch collection. Ex Bonhams.

Max Klein (1905-1991) Collection, Canada. Acquired from 1970s to early 1980s and thence by descent. 

Description

Cylindrical lekythos with a calyx mouth, a narrow neck, a vertical strap handle from neck to
shoulder, a slender tapering body and a disc foot. The black mouth, the upper neck, the handle are restored; a band of reddish-brown glaze marks the junction of neck
and shoulder and another the lower body, above the black of the foot. The body between the
two bands is covered with a white ground, now abraded and incrusted, on which only faint
traces of the painted decoration (meander?) survive; a few horizontal lines are still visible on the shoulder
and at the top of the body. Scattered on the body tiny specks of red, black and orange color remain. 

In the proportions of the body, the distribution of the black and reddish glaze and the
arrangement of the reserved and white zones, the vase stands close to the lekythoi produced in
the workshop of the Reed Painter, who was active in Athens in the last decades of the 5th
century BCE and whose white lekythoi, made in great numbers for the cemeteries of the city,
were also exported to Gela and Corinth.

Included detailed report of a archaeologist specialised in the field of the attribution of vases. 

Condition

Fair condition; neck, handle and mouth are of a later addition. Body repaired from fragments.  

Price

€ 900