A beautiful black-figure skyphos from Attica, coming from a well-known collection, published and attributed to a known workshop!

This rather large skyphos was made in the early fifth century BC on the potter's wheel, using fine reddish clay which received a black glaze and has applied white and red paint. The body has a projecting foot and two handles. The inside of the vessel, the rim, the outer side of the handles, the lower part of the outside and the upper part of the foot were glazed.

The scene on both sides is almost identical, showing a dancing girl, surrounded by two dancing youths who have their body turned away from her but look back at her. The scene is framed on both sides by a squatting sphinx, turned away from the dancers, and by lines above and below; there is a frieze of dots near the foot.

The decoration was done very elegantly with some incised lines. The adornment of the hair and the pattern on the clothes was added in red colour, the face and arms of the women and the face and neck of the sphinxes in white colour.

The abbreviation "CHC Group" stands for "Chariot Courting Group", which was part of the Heron Class, as described by Beazley. Their work was popular and was even copied in Boeotian art. There are two skyphoi with an almost identical decoration in Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale), both published by Lambrino.

Another skyphos by the CHC Group sold for GBP 5,625 (= US$ 8,600 or € 6,500) at auction (Christie's Sale 5487 of 29 April 2010, lot 52) and another one for US$ 18,750 (= € 14,500) (Christie's Sale 2056 of 9 December 2008, lot 83).

Dimensions: 13,7cm T x 18,0cm. D

Provenance: Collection of Dr. Wilhelm Hartwig, Weinheim, Germany.

Published: Kurt Deppert, Griechische Vasen (Weinheim, 1984) Nr. 12. A copy of the relevant pages of this publication will be sent in electronic format (pdf) to the buyer.

Literature:
For the CHC Group see:
John D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956; reprinted 1978) 617 ff.;
John D. Beazley, Paralipomena. Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971), 306-308;
John Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases (London, 1974), fig. 292;
S. Lambrino, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, France Fasc. 10, Bibliothèque Nationale (Cabinet des Médailles) Fasc. 2, (Paris, 1931), pl. 70, 1-2 and 3-5;
Catherine Morgan - Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, Attic Fine Pottery of the Archaic to Hellenistic Periods in Phanagoria, Volume 1 (Colloquia Pontica, 10). (Leiden, Brill, 2004), p. 200, 232;
O.E. Borgers, The Theseus Painter. Style, Shapes and Iconography (Diss. Amsterdam, 2003), chapter II, p. 22-39;

For Boeotian copies of the CHC Group see:
K. Kilinski, Boeotian Black-figure Vase-painting of the Archaic Period (Mainz am Rhein, Von Zabern, 1990), p. 59;
Victoria Sabetai, "Attic, Boeotian or Euboean? An orphan skyphos from Rhitsona revisited" in Donna Kurtz (ed.), Essays in Classical Archaeology for Eleni Hatzivassiliou 1977-2007 (Studies in Classical Archaeology IV) (Oxford, Beazley Archive and Archaeopress, 2008), p. 137-143.

there is a reserve on this lot

Repaired from a few large fragments, as is the case with many ancient vases, a few spots with some damage, as visible on the photographs, a small area touched up; some irregular colouring caused when the skyphos was fired, white colour partly somewhat faded.