APULIAN RED FIGURE OINOCHOE

Ca. 370 - 340 BC.
An Apulian oinochoe with red figure, probably created by the circle of the Snub Nose painter. The vessel is adorned with sparingly depicted figures against a black background, and details are accentuated using overlaid white and yellow paint. The primary decoration features a dressed woman with a sakkos, holding a large patera in her left hand and a flower scepter in her right hand. The woman is also adorned with an elaborate necklace. The concise decoration includes the typical Apulian palmette painted beneath the handle and flower motifs around the palmette. The vase's neck is embellished with vertical white lines. It possesses a characteristic globular shape with a very thin handle set on the mouth's rim, which has a trefoil form. For similar examples, refer to Royal Athena's "100 Years of Greek Vases II," pages 68-69.
Red-figure pottery produced in Apulia between the 5th and 4th centuries BC is one of the most widely exported products throughout the Mediterranean area, probably because of the best value for money on the market. These products reached such an exceptional technical level that we can compare them to Attic vases. Technically, like the Attic vases, they are extremely difficult to make because above all creating the mixtures and carrying out an extremely refined and difficult firing process with such a level of result, but without modern technology, was very complex and required a great deal of experimentation. This piece is accompanied by a historical report from Alessandro Neri, an international Cultural Heritage expert based in Florence, Italy.
Size: 110mm x 70mm; Weight: 100g
Provenance: Property of a central London gallery, previously acquired on the Dutch art market; Ex. Frederik Van Driel, Maastricht 1993. This item has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database and comes with a confirmation letter.