A BLACK-FIGURED TERRACOTTA 'ROOSTERS AND SNAKE' ARYBALLOS (OIL FLASK), MIDDLE TO LATE CORINTHIAN
A BLACK-FIGURED TERRACOTTA 'ROOSTERS AND SNAKE' ARYBALLOS (OIL FLASK), MIDDLE TO LATE CORINTHIAN PERIOD, EARLY 6TH CENTURY BC
Finely modeled, the globular body supported on a small, gently splayed foot and rising to a short neck with a thick, slightly inward-sloping rim and narrow circular mouth, one side fitted with an upright handle. The exterior is finely decorated in black and garnet-red slip with two opposing cockerels, their plumage delicately rendered with incised details, flanking a coiling snake.
Provenance: Laurent Bermudez Primitive Arts, Berkeley, California, United States, 1997. Collection of Carmelo Barbera, Messina, Italy, acquired from the above. Thereafter in a private collection in Naples, Italy. A copy of the invoice from Bermudez Primitive Arts, dated July 1997, addressed to Carmelo Barbera, confirming the attribution and dating above, and stating a purchase price for the present lot of USD 1,500 or approx. EUR 2,800 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Laurent Bermudez was a Berkeley, California-based dealer specializing in ancient and ethnographic art, active by the early 1980s and into the 1990s. Operating under the name Laurent Bermudez Primitive Arts, he handled a broad range of material, including Pre-Columbian, African, Indigenous, Egyptian, Roman, and Islamic works, many of which subsequently entered distinguished private collections and museums.
Condition: Good condition, with expected wear, firing irregularities, signs of prolonged burial, encrustations, light rubbing to pigments, and small chips along the rims.
Weight: 518.3 g
Dimensions: Height 14.7 cm, Diameter 12.7 cm
The black-figure technique was used in Athens to decorate fine pottery between the beginning of the sixth and the end of the fourth century BC. In black-figure vase painting, figural and ornamental motifs were applied with a slip that turned black during firing, while the background was left the color of the clay. Vase painters articulated individual forms by incising the slip or by adding white and purplish-red enhancements (mixtures of pigment and clay).
During the Middle Corinthian period, vase painting developed the technical and ornamental vocabulary established in earlier phases while moving towards greater compositional clarity and a more standardized repertory. Animal friezes continued to play a central role, with lions, panthers, goats, bulls, sphinxes, sirens, and cocks arranged in balanced or antithetical schemes. Compared with earlier Corinthian work, however, the decorative fields were often less densely crowded, while subsidiary filling ornaments, particularly rosettes and dots, were reduced, allowing the principal figures greater visual prominence.
Painted vases were often made in specific shapes for specific daily uses—storing and transporting wine and foodstuffs (amphorai), drawing water (hydriai), drinking wine or water (kantharoi or kylikes), and holding oils or perfumes (aryballoi)—and for special, often ritual occasions, such as pouring libations (lekythoi) or carrying water for the bridal bath (loutrophoroi). Within this context, small perfume vessels such as the present lot provided an especially suitable format for highly controlled miniature decoration, while larger shapes, including oinochoai, amphorae, and kraters, offered broader surfaces for more ambitious compositions.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related Corinthian black-figured pottery aryballos, dated to the 6th century, 5.7 cm high, in the British Museum, registration number 1867,0508.888. Compare a closely related Corinthian ceramic flat-bottomed aryballos, attributed to the Borowski Painter, dated to the early 6th century BC, 11 cm high, in the Princeton University Art Museum, object number y1940-151. Compare a closely related East Greek pottery oinochoe with a similar 'snake between cockerels' decorative motif, dated c. 600-575 BC, 20 cm high, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession number 88.1037. Compare a closely related Corinthian aryballos with a similar 'snake between cockerels' decorative motif, dated c. 600-590 BC, 6.4 cm high, in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inventory number Dr. 090
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby's New York, 10 December 2008, lot 55
Price: USD 10,625 or approx. EUR 15,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Corinthian aryballos, attributed to the Wieler Painter, circa 580 BC
Expert remark: Compare the closely related form and painted decorative motifs, with similarly confronted rooster. Note the nearly identical size (14.6 cm).
A BLACK-FIGURED TERRACOTTA 'ROOSTERS AND SNAKE' ARYBALLOS (OIL FLASK), MIDDLE TO LATE CORINTHIAN PERIOD, EARLY 6TH CENTURY BC
Finely modeled, the globular body supported on a small, gently splayed foot and rising to a short neck with a thick, slightly inward-sloping rim and narrow circular mouth, one side fitted with an upright handle. The exterior is finely decorated in black and garnet-red slip with two opposing cockerels, their plumage delicately rendered with incised details, flanking a coiling snake.
Provenance: Laurent Bermudez Primitive Arts, Berkeley, California, United States, 1997. Collection of Carmelo Barbera, Messina, Italy, acquired from the above. Thereafter in a private collection in Naples, Italy. A copy of the invoice from Bermudez Primitive Arts, dated July 1997, addressed to Carmelo Barbera, confirming the attribution and dating above, and stating a purchase price for the present lot of USD 1,500 or approx. EUR 2,800 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Laurent Bermudez was a Berkeley, California-based dealer specializing in ancient and ethnographic art, active by the early 1980s and into the 1990s. Operating under the name Laurent Bermudez Primitive Arts, he handled a broad range of material, including Pre-Columbian, African, Indigenous, Egyptian, Roman, and Islamic works, many of which subsequently entered distinguished private collections and museums.
Condition: Good condition, with expected wear, firing irregularities, signs of prolonged burial, encrustations, light rubbing to pigments, and small chips along the rims.
Weight: 518.3 g
Dimensions: Height 14.7 cm, Diameter 12.7 cm
The black-figure technique was used in Athens to decorate fine pottery between the beginning of the sixth and the end of the fourth century BC. In black-figure vase painting, figural and ornamental motifs were applied with a slip that turned black during firing, while the background was left the color of the clay. Vase painters articulated individual forms by incising the slip or by adding white and purplish-red enhancements (mixtures of pigment and clay).
During the Middle Corinthian period, vase painting developed the technical and ornamental vocabulary established in earlier phases while moving towards greater compositional clarity and a more standardized repertory. Animal friezes continued to play a central role, with lions, panthers, goats, bulls, sphinxes, sirens, and cocks arranged in balanced or antithetical schemes. Compared with earlier Corinthian work, however, the decorative fields were often less densely crowded, while subsidiary filling ornaments, particularly rosettes and dots, were reduced, allowing the principal figures greater visual prominence.
Painted vases were often made in specific shapes for specific daily uses—storing and transporting wine and foodstuffs (amphorai), drawing water (hydriai), drinking wine or water (kantharoi or kylikes), and holding oils or perfumes (aryballoi)—and for special, often ritual occasions, such as pouring libations (lekythoi) or carrying water for the bridal bath (loutrophoroi). Within this context, small perfume vessels such as the present lot provided an especially suitable format for highly controlled miniature decoration, while larger shapes, including oinochoai, amphorae, and kraters, offered broader surfaces for more ambitious compositions.
Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related Corinthian black-figured pottery aryballos, dated to the 6th century, 5.7 cm high, in the British Museum, registration number 1867,0508.888. Compare a closely related Corinthian ceramic flat-bottomed aryballos, attributed to the Borowski Painter, dated to the early 6th century BC, 11 cm high, in the Princeton University Art Museum, object number y1940-151. Compare a closely related East Greek pottery oinochoe with a similar 'snake between cockerels' decorative motif, dated c. 600-575 BC, 20 cm high, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession number 88.1037. Compare a closely related Corinthian aryballos with a similar 'snake between cockerels' decorative motif, dated c. 600-590 BC, 6.4 cm high, in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, inventory number Dr. 090
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby's New York, 10 December 2008, lot 55
Price: USD 10,625 or approx. EUR 15,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Corinthian aryballos, attributed to the Wieler Painter, circa 580 BC
Expert remark: Compare the closely related form and painted decorative motifs, with similarly confronted rooster. Note the nearly identical size (14.6 cm).
