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AN APULIAN RED-FIGURED VOLUTE-KRATER
- ATTRIBUTED TO THE UNDERWORLD PAINTER, CIRCA 330 B.C.

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AN APULIAN RED-FIGURED VOLUTE-KRATER
ATTRIBUTED TO THE UNDERWORLD PAINTER, CIRCA 330 B.C.
Price Realized
(Set Currency)
  • $104,500
  • Price includes buyer's premium
Estimate
    $30,000 - $50,000

Sale Information

Sale 2323
Antiquities
10 June 2010
New York, Rockefeller Plaza Buy Catalog





Lot Description

AN APULIAN RED-FIGURED VOLUTE-KRATER
ATTRIBUTED TO THE UNDERWORLD PAINTER, CIRCA 330 B.C.
The body of the obverse with the Apotheosis of Herakles, the hero nude and beardless, riding in a quadriga up to Olympus driven by Athena, his club in his right hand, the goddess wearing a peplos, aegis and crested helmet, the still-burning logs of his funeral pyre below, with two draped maidens approaching from the left, each carrying a hydria to quench the flames with water, to the right a small Eros flying towards Aphrodite with a wreath in his hands, Aphrodite holding a mirror in her right hand, a fan beside her, the upper register with Apollo in the center, holding a kithara and a laurel branch, a bow and quiver below, looking back toward his sister Artemis to the left, with a quiver over her shoulder, two spears in her right hand, Zeus seated to the right, a thunderbolt in his right hand, an eagle-topped scepter in his left, Hermes to the far right, wearing a chlamys over his left shoulder and high winged boots, his petasos suspended over his shoulders, his kerykeion in his right hand, a walking stick in his left, Pan to the far left leaning on a rocky outcrop, a shepherd's staff in his left hand, his syrinx in his right; the neck with a white female head emerging from a blossom amidst florals, bands of rosettes, bead-and-reel, and wave above; the body of the reverse with a tall palmette in a naiskos, framed by four offering bearers; the neck with palmettes and tendrils, bands of laurel and wave above; a band of meander and dotted cross squares encircling below on the body, ovolo and tongues on the shoulders, ovolo on the rim, palmettes below the handles, the volutes with molded diademed female heads, in added white on the obverse, the shoulders with molded duck heads framing the handles, details in added yellow, white and red
34 in. (86.3 cm.) high

Lot Condition Report
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Provenance

Tokyo Private Collection, prior to 1983.

Literature

A.D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, First Supplement to The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, London, 1983, no. 18/287a.

Lot Notes

According to Trendall (op. cit., p. 84) the Apotheosis of Herakles is a rare subject in Apulian vase painting. Trendall referred to the present vase as one of the most interesting of the developed phase of the Underworld Painter's work.

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