Greek, South Italic. This is a excellent red-figure bail amphora decorated by a well-known artist, the Whiteface Painter. About 50 vases are currently attributed to this painter. On either side a richly dressed woman is depicted. She is wearing earrings, a necklace, bracelets and a diadem, and she is looking into a mirror which she is holding in her right hand; on one side she has a necklace in her left hand. Between the women palmettes / anthemions with two dots above them; the same motive on the neck of the amphora; around the shoulder a laurel frieze. The amphora has a slender body with a cylinder-shaped neck, opening up at the top; the loop handle is twisted and pierced at the top. The vessel is made of reddish buff clay and has a dark brown glaze; a red wash, on which white paint was applied for the details.

A similar amphora by the same painter sold at Christie's New York for US$ 10,000 (on 6 December 2007, lot 129).

Size: overall height 38.9 cm

Culture: South Italian, Campanian, 360 - 330 BC

Literature: For the Whiteface painter see Arthur Dale Trendall, The Red Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily (Oxford, 1967), p. 378 ff., pl. 147, 3-5; idem, First Supplement (London, 1970), p. 68 f.; idem, Second Supplement (London, 1973), p. 214 ff.; idem, Third Supplement (London, 1983), p. 184 ff. For the shape see K. Schauenburg, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Römische Abteilung, 83 (1976), 267 f.

PROVENANCE: Collection of Egon Tanner, Schaffhausen, Switzerland.


(there is a reserve on this lot)

Some scratches and small spots where the surface was slightly damaged (as visible on the photographs), common with ancient vases. Loop handle and foot reattached with small restoration to foot.