ATTIC BLACK-FIGURE, WHITEGROUND LEKYTHOS
Ca. 490-480 BC.
Attributed to the Athena painter. This vase depicts a scene from a centauromachy, showing a hoplite soldier on one knee, thrusting the point of his spear into his opponent's mid-section. The centaur, rearing up on hind legs and armed with a large fir tree branch, takes hold of the hoplite by his helmet's high crest. Five nonsense letters are scattered in upper field. For a similar lekythos by the Athena Painter, with the same subject, see the white-ground example in the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes, Havana, inv. no 141 (J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1956, p. 523, no. 7, Beazley Pottery Database no: 330755).
Size: L:238mm / W: 98mm; 343.05g
Provenance: Part of an Oxford gentleman’s collection; from an old British collection formed in the 1980’s. Ex, Christie’s, Lon- don, 2 July 1980, lot 75. Fine Antiquities, Christie’s, London, 2 July 1980, lot 75. Fine Antiquities, Ex, Christie’s London, 6 June 1989, lot 490. Fine Antiquities, Ex, Christie’s London, 11 July 1990, lot 161. Private collection, Geneva, Fine Antiquities, Ex, Christie’s London, 6 June 1989, lot 490. The Castle Ash- by Vases; Ex, Christie’s, London, 2 July 1980, lot 75. Spencer Joshua Alwyne Compton, Second Marquess of Northampton (1790 - 1851), Castle Ashby, and thence by descent.
Estimate: GBP 20000 - 40000