ATTRIBUTED TO THE PIG PAINTER, CIRCA 475-465 B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED COLUMN-KRATER
ATTRIBUTED TO THE PIG PAINTER, CIRCA 475-465 B.C.
16 7/8 in. (42.8 cm.) high

Provenance

Auktion III, Ars Antiqua, Lucerne, 29 April 1961, lot 106.
Private Collection, Bellinzona.
with Donati Arte Classica, Lugano.
Acquired by the current owner from the above, 1992.

Literature

J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Second edition, Oxford, 1963, no. 7, pp. 563 and 1659.
F. Brommer, Vasenlisten zur griechischen Heldensage, Marburg, 1973, p. 501, no. B19.
B. Schiffler, Die Typologie des Kentauren in der antiken Kunst: vom 10. bis zum Ende d. 4. Jhs. v. Chr., Frankfurt, 1976, p. 253, A101.
E. Laufer, Kaineus: Studien zur Ikonographie, Rome, 1985, p. 36, no. K44, pl. 12, fig. 34.
T.H. Carpenter, et al., Beazley Addenda, Second Edition, Oxford, 1989, p. 260, no. 563.7.
E. Laufer, "Kaineus," in LIMC, vol. 5, Zurich and Munich, 1990, no. 40.
Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 206432.

Lot Essay

The death of the Lapith warrior Kaineus was a favorite subject of Greek artists. Kaineus had originally been born a woman, who after being seduced by Poseidon, appealed to the god to turn her into an invincible man, which he agreed to do. As weapons were useless against Kaineus, the centaurs could only pound him into the ground. This vase depicts the moment that Kaineus descends into the underworld, his body partially submerged into the ground.

J.D. Beazley classified the Pig Painter as an early Mannerist, a term he devised to categorize a group of painters who, at the time of radical change in artistic expression during the emergence of a new Classical style, chose to adhere to the well-established Archaic tradition (see pp. 179-180 in J. Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Archaic Period).

More from Antiquities

View All