Works of Art
Attic Black Figure Hydria, attributed to the Zurich Painter
Period: Archaic Greek, middle of the 6th century B.C.
Culture: Geometric to Archaic
Category: Array
Dimensions: Height: 33.0cm.
Price: CHF 75000, USD 75000
Provenance: Ex-private collection, Belgium
Condition: The vessel is almost whole, but several fragments, some of which are lost, have been reassembled.
Description
Hydriai are the Greek water vessels par excellence; they are characterized by two horizontal handles for the transport of the container and a vertical handle used to pour the liquid. Many representations - especially on Attic ceramics of the late 6th century B.C. - show women at the fountain, balancing a hydria on their heads or filling it with water.
The decoration of this piece is organized in two registers: the main scene, painted on the large metope, represents a chariot with a team of four horses going towards the right. The animals are controlled by a charioteer dressed in a long tunic and holding the reins and a stick. On the shoulder, in almost miniature style, one sees a dueling scene between two warriors armed like hoplites: lance, shield, helmet, greaves. Each warrior is accompanied by an old man draped in a long coat. The way they are fighting, in a duel rather than in a phalanx, recalls the heroes of the Homeric texts, but in the absence of attributes or other indications, it is difficult to identify the scene more precisely.
This hydria is the work of a well-known Attic artist, who worked during the central decades of the 6th century B.C.: the Zurich painter. J.D. Beazley attributed several works to him, of which there are other hydriai with very similar decoration (now in the Louvre, Villa Giulia, Saint Petersburg, Zurich).
Bibliography
Published:
Christie’s Londres, 21 avril 1999, n. 148.
Parallels:
On the Zurich painter:
BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Black Figure Vases Painters, Oxford, 1956, p. 92.
CARPENTER T.H. et al., Beazley Addenda, Additional References to ABV, ARV2, and Paralipomena, Oxford, 1989, p. 25.
On hydrias attributed to the same painter:
Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Musée du Louvre n. 6, p. 45, pl. 65, 3.