Attic Pottery - Red-Figure Ware: Miniature Attic Black Lekythos
Inv. No.: 95.110b
Provenance: Attica (Metaponto)
Date: 4th century BC
Height: 55mm
Diameter: 54mm
A small black lekythos with a very squat, rounded body set on a small ring foot that is slightly flaring in profile. The shoulder is flat and there is a narrow neck with an echinus mouth. There is a slight moulding on the shoulder, around the base of the neck. The flat strap handle is broken, but it would have curved from the side of the neck and down onto the shoulder. Only the section where it runs along the side the neck and then starts to curve up and around remains. The vase is shiny black although it has fired red on one part of the shoulder and part of the foot was not painted. The clay is orange-red in colour. The neck has been broken and re-attached; otherwise the vase is in good condition apart from the broken handle and minor chips and abrasions.
Function:
A container for oil or perfumed oil; the miniature size suggests that this was an offering.
Manufacture:
The vase was thrown on the wheel in sections and turned when leather-hard. The handle was shaped by hand and attached with slip.
Bibliography:
Sparkes, B. A. and L. Talcott, The Athenian Agora: Volume XII. Black and Plain Pottery of the 6th, 5th and 4th centuries BC: Part 1, Princeton, New Jersey, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1970, "Lekythos", 150-155 (especially "Squat lekythos: Small and Late", 154).
Comparanda:
Hayes, J. W., Greek and Italian Black-Gloss Wares and Related Wares in the Royal Ontario Museum: A Catalogue, Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, 1984, 46-48, especially 48 (Attic examples), 96 (South Italian ribbed example).
Lamb, W., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 6, Cambridge 1 (1930), III L G, IV, Plate XLI, 7 (larger South Italian ribbed example of similar shape).
Mayence, F. and V. Verhoogen, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Belgique 3, Bruxelles 3 (1949), IV E, Plate 3, 25 (ribbed South Italian version).
Sparkes, B. A. and L. Talcott, The Athenian Agora: Volume XII. Black and Plain Pottery of the 6th, 5th and 4th centuries BC: Part 2, Princeton, New Jersey, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1970, Plate 38, 1135.