Description:
A vase with a tapering body, a deep shoulder, and a trefoil mouth with a high handle from the shoulder to the rim. The oinochoe stands on a low conical foot. Based on its shape the oinochoe belongs to the type 1 as classified by Sir John Beazley.
The black vase has a reserved figure panel, showing a scene with Dionysos reclining on a couch; his himation is wrapped around his waist, having fallen off one of his shoulders. Next to him is a small table hung with cuts of meat. The god is bearded, and a vine springs from his legs.
In front of him are a draped maenad and a satyr holding a pair of wooden clappers (krotala); behind Dionysos is another satyr.
The scene is framed left and right with a net pattern and tongues above, and a meander pattern around the neck, consisting of a long, unbroken line, repeatedly folding back on itself to form an interlocking pattern. A red line beneath the scene.
The illustration belongs to the more popular scenes: the theme of Dionysos, surrounded by (dancing) maenads and satyrs, is common in the Archaic period. Current among Attic black-figure vase-painters from the second quarter of the sixth century onward, the subject became particularly popular around the middle of the century on vases by Lydos and his followers (Markoe (2000), p. 45), but also elsewhere. For the subject of Dionysos reclining in the presence of a maenad and sileni compare also a white-ground oinochoe in Compiègne (Haspels (1936), p. 214, no. 189; Flot (1924), vol. I, p. 9; vol, II, pl. 12, no. 15) and an oinochoe in Auxerre (Rolley (1957-1958), p. 5, no. 47).
Please note: paperwork maintained by the Corcoran Gallery of Art will accompany this object, including photographs made before and after conservation treatment, and a short comparative study of the vase with illustrations showing parallels and related vases.
Special exhibition:
"The William A. Clark Collection," Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 26 April - 16 July 1978.
General exhibition:
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, (1926-2014);
American University Museum, Washington, DC (2014 - 2021).
Published::
Collection Collin (1911), p. 23, no. 167;
Original Clark Catalog, p. 248, part 2, no. 167;
Illustrated Handbook (1928), p. 123, no. 2669;
Illustrated Handbook (1932), p. 117, no. 2669;
McGovern-Huffman, p. 24.
Bibliography:
Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection (Washington, DC, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1928);
Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection (Washington, DC, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1932);
Collection of Antique Grecian, Egyptian, and Etruscan Statuettes, Vases, Tanagras, etc., made by Raphaël Collin, of Paris, France (1911);
Marcelle Flot, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, France, Musée de Compiègne (Musée Vivenel) (Paris, Librairie ancienne Édouard Champion, 1924);
Caroline Henriette Emilie Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekythoi (Travaux et mémoires des anciens membres étrangers de l'Ecole et de divers savants, Ecole française d'Athènes, volume 4) (Paris, E. de Boccard, 1936);
Glenn Markoe, "An Attic Black-figured Column-Krater in Malibu: Dionysiac Sparagmos and Omophagia", Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum Volume 6 (Occasional Papers on Antiquities, 9) (Malibu, California, The J. Paul Getty Trust, 2000), p. 45-54;
Sue McGovern-Huffman, The Senator William A. Clark Collecion of Ancient Art (Washington, DC, Sands of Time Ancient Art, 2022);
Claude Rolley, "Catalogue des vases grecs du Musée d'Auxerre", Bulletin de la société des sciences historiques et naturelles de l'Yonne, 97 (1957-1958).
Dating:
Greece, Attica, circa 510-490 B.C.
Size:
Height circa 18 cm.
Provenance:
Collection of Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (1850 – 1916), a French painter who assembled his collection with the assistance of experts from the Louvre Museum, Paris, between 1890 and 1910;
thence collection of the American politician Senator William Andrews Clark Sr. (1839 - 1925), bought from the above;
thence collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC (1926 - 2014), received as a bequest from the above;
thence collection of the American University Museum, Washington DC (2014 - 2021), received as a gift from the trustees of the Corcoran Gallery;
thence with Sands of Time Gallery, Washington DC.
Condition:
Intact.
When this vase was put up for auction a few years ago, the condition report incorrectly said that is was "Reassembled from multiple fragments, fill, and light cosmetic overpainting"; this was probably a mix-up with the condition report of another object in that auction.
Our own restorer examined the vase and found it to be intact, with only a few scratches and other minor damage, common to almost all ancient pottery. This is in conformity with the Corcoran Gallery of Art conservation report; to quote from that report: "In excellent, intact condition, with a blind crack in the neck; very good, with all paint intact; soluable salts were removed during conservation; minor flaking and vulnerable areas of the glaze were consolidated, and small areas of loss of black glaze at lip, foot and handle were inpainted. The good black glaze was applied unevenly so the vase has fired somewhat streakily in a few places".
Price:
€ 18,000
Stock number:
C1363