Property from an American Private Collection
An Attic Black-figured Hydria, attributed to the Priam Painter, circa 515-500 B.C.
Auction Closed
December 3, 04:39 PM GMT
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
with torus foot and high convex pouring handle with rotelles at the rim, the body painted with a scene showing ladies at a fountain, five of the ladies wearing peploi and himatia, two balancing hydriae on their heads, three of the ladies leaving the fountain, two approaching it, the sixth lady clad in a short chiton and standing before the horse-head spout beneath a Doric portico, her hydria filling with water on the plinth before her, the shoulder of the vessel painted with two confronted quadrigas, tongues below the neck, rays above the foot, linked palmettes and pomegranates bordering the main scene, the details in added white and red, a graffito under the foot.
Height 49.9 cm.
Swiss private collection
Sotheby's, New York, June 14th, 2000, no. 59, illus.
acquired by the present owner at the above sale
Fountainhouses like the one depicted on the present example were first introduced in Athens under Peisistratid rule, circa 520 B.C. See J. M. Camp, The Athenian Agora, Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens, 1986, London, 1986, for an informative discussion on Peisistratid building works in which the author notes: "Such fountains must have been a great source of pleasure; much easier to fill a jar with clean fresh running water from a spout, rather than laboriously draw it ten meters out of a well constantly threatened by contamination or a drop in the water table. The local fountainhouse must have served also as something of a social centre for the women when they went to draw water, one of the few occasions when they could hope to get out of the house, for otherwise Athenian society and customs bound them firmly to the home."