Attic black-figure skyphos
Attic terracotta skyphos (storage jar for wine) with a stemmed base, a deep bowl and twin, upturned loop handles, all upon a concave base. The rim and lip are thin and left red. The exterior walls are decorated with black-figure technique on red background: the deep drinking cup is flanked by two Sphynxes with wings recurved facing each other and with rough details incised. Close to the handles, is a stylized flower. Black glaze bands on the body and handles as well as a concentric circle on the base further adorn the piece. The foot is short with a thick disc mostly red except for the lower section painted in black glaze.
Stylistic remarks: compare with object numbers 127.007 and 127.017, particularly the flower on 127.017. The style is remarkably similar to that of the Haimon Painter.
Date: 500–450 B.C.E
Parallels: exceptionally similar example in style New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1972.118.144, similar in style 06.1021.65, see also 17.230.9, 41.162.125, 56.62.2, 91.1.457, 2021.40.37; Athens, Museum of Cycladic Art ΚΠ0018; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum 86.AE.150; Cambridge, Harvard Art Museums 1960.321.
References: Walters, H B., Forsdyke, E J., Smith, C. H., Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum, London: BMP, 1893-1925; True, M., and Jiri F., Greek Vases: Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection, Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1983; Keck, J., Studien zur Rezeption fremder Einfluesse in der chalkidischen Keramik. Ein Betrag zur Lokalisierungsfrage, Archaeologische Studien 8, Frankfurt, 1988; Williams, D., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, London: The British Museum 9, 1993; Catoni, M. L., Bere vino puro. Immagini del simposio. Milan: Feltrinelli, 2010; Matheson, S. B., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut. Attic black-figure amphorae, loutrophoros-amphora, loutrophoros-hydria, hydria, olpai/oinochoai, lekythoi, alabastra, exaleiptra/kothones/plemochoai, pyxides, askos, plate, phiale, skyphoi, cups, and Six's technique lekythos, Boeotian black-figure lekane, kantharoi, skyphos, Attic red-figure bell krater. From the Martin Robertson Collection: Attic black-figure Cassel cup and fragments, red-figure pelike and fragments, white-ground lekythos fragment, Darmstadt: Philipp von Zabern, 2016; Malagardis, N., Skyphoi Attiques à Figures Noires. Typologie et Recherches-Ateliers et Peintres, Athens: Bibliothèque de la Sociététe Archèologique d'Athènes, 2017, p. 50; on the Haimon Painter Penelope T., “Attic White-Ground Pyxis and Phiale, ca. 450 B.C.”, Boston Museum Bulletin, vol. 67, no. 348, pp. 86 and 90; F. F. J. “Four Vases by the Haimon Painter”, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, vol. 11, no. 1, Princeton University Art Museum, 1952, pp. 5–9.
Photo by Steve Morton