Red-figure Lekythos, attributed to the Pan Painter

with disk foot and convex handle, the body painted with the figure of a woman walking to right and playing the lyre, her head thrown back in an ecstatic movement, the woman wearing a long chiton, flowing mantle, disk earring , and folded cap, in front of her mouth the inscription KALE, "pretty", referring to her; a meander pattern above and below the scene, palmettes and scrolling tendrils below, black-figure tongues on the shoulder.

Münzen und Medaillen, Basel
Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, acquired from the above
Howard and Saretta Barnet, New York, acquired from the above on February 17, 1968

Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, Art of the Ancients: Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, February 7 - March 13, 1968

Herbert A. Cahn, Art of the Ancients: Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, New York, 1968, p. 25, cat. no. 30
John D. Beazley, Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 387, no. 114 bis
Norbert Kunisch, Antiken der Sammlung Julius C. und Margot Funcke, Bochum, 1974, p. 104
Thomas H. Carpenter, Thomas Mannack, and Melanie Mendonça, Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV² and Paralipomena, Oxford, 1989, p. 259
Beazley Archive Pottery Database, no. 275733

Repaired from fragments and with a large area of restoration on the side of the lekythos, to the right of the female figure. Restoration includes the lower part of the lyre, both hands, and the much of the advanced leg and foot. Other small areas of restoration, one of which includes the mouth and possibly the nose. The reverse of the vase stained and/or misfired in places.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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For a related lekythos in Naples with a female lyre player standing in a more restrained attitude, also attributed to the Pan Painter, see J.D. Beazley, Der Pan-Maler, Berlin, 1931, pl. 28,I and Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1963, p. 557, no. 115. The 1968 Emmerich exhibition catalogue entry notes that the "Profile and hanging mantle recall Artemis on his [the Pan Painter's] famous Actaeon krater in Boston".¹ Gisela M.A. Richter describes the Pan Painter as "one of the most engaging of Greek vase painters, delighting in scenes of movement and dramatic incident, consciously archaizing, and yet with a taste for the unusual and untried. And so his pictures, while retaining the late archaic quaintness and grace, are imbued with a new freedom. The forms are old but the spirit is new and highly individual. Over one hundred works have been attributed to him, on a great variety of shapes - cups, large pots, and small ones. His earliest extant ones are the psykter with Marpessa in Munich [...] and the lekythos with Artemis (on a white ground) in Leningrad [...], both somewhat stiff in design but, especially the Artemis, of an ethereal charm. The masterpiece of his mature period are the bell krater in Boston [...] after which he is named, with the death of Aktaion and Pan pursuing a goatherd [...] and the pelike with Herakles and Busiris, in Athens."<sup>2

1</sup> Herbert A. Cahn, Art of the Ancients: Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, New York, 1968, p. 25
² Gisela M.A. Richter, Attic Red-Figured Vases, New Haven and London, 1948, pp. 94-95