Description:
An object with the best possible provenance!
This bell krater (a bowl for mixing wine and water) is not from Apulia, as one would expect at first glance (and as was also assumed by the Corcoran Museum, where it was exhibited), but from mainland Greece; it was made in a known Boeotian workshop (see the publication by Ure, and confirmed by the curator of ancient art of the Princeton University Art Museum).
The vase consists of a deep bowl, standing on a hollow disk foot. The mouth is wide and has an everted, overhanging rim, decorated with a band of tongues. There are two horizontal handles, each with an ivy leaf underneath.
The krater is decorated with a large palmette on the reverse, and the head of a woman facing left on the obverse. She has curly hair, covering her ears, and is wearing a sakkos patterned with dots between double stripes.
Women's heads were a favourite form of decoration on Boeotian vases of the latter part of the fifth century and the early fourth (Ure, p. 245), as they were in the whole Greek world, where they were extraordinarily widespread. The significance of these representations is not known; it is noteworthy that there was no male counterpart.
For close parallels see the publication by Ure; for a nearly identical krater, probably by the same painter, see Sarajevo Museum, 417 (Beazley Archive Pottery Database, 9003347). See also a Boeotian krater in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 75.2.17, said to have been found in the vicinity of Athens.
Please note: paperwork maintained by the Corcoran Gallery of Art will accompany this object, including photographs and slides made before, during and after conservation treatment, and including correspondence from 1952 with A.D. Ure about rights to publish the vase.
Exhibited:
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, (1926-2014);
American University Museum, Washington, DC (2014 - 2021).
Published:
This krater was published in a comparative study by Ure (1953), p. 246, no. 11; pl. 70, fig. 21; pl. 71, fig. 31;
Collection Collin (1911), p. 27, no. 188;
Original Clark Catalog, p. 251, part 2, no. 188;
Illustrated Handbook (1928), p. 124, no. 2690;
Illustrated Handbook (1932), p. 118, no. 2690;
McGovern-Huffman, p. 37.
Bibliography:
Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection (Washington, DC, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1928);
Illustrated Handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection (Washington, DC, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1932);
Collection of Antique Grecian, Egyptian, and Etruscan Statuettes, Vases, Tanagras, etc., made by Raphaël Collin, of Paris, France (1911);
Sue McGovern-Huffman, The Senator William A. Clark Collecion of Ancient Art (Washington, DC, Sands of Time Ancient Art, 2022);
Annie D. Ure, "Boeotian Vases with Women's Heads", American Journal of Archaeology 57, no. 4 (Archaeological Institute of America, 1953), p. 245-249; pls. 66-72.
Dating:
Greece, Boeotia, circa 4th century B.C.
Size:
Height circa 15 cm.
Provenance:
Collection of Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (1850 – 1916), a French painter who assembled his collection with the assistance of experts from the Louvre Museum, Paris, between 1890 and 1910;
thence collection of the American politician Senator William Andrews Clark Sr. (1839 - 1925), bought from the above;
thence collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC (1926 - 2014), received as a bequest from the above;
thence collection of the American University Museum, Washington DC (2014 - 2021), received as a gift from the trustees of the Corcoran Gallery;
thence with Sands of Time Gallery, Washington DC.
Condition:
Intact and in very good condition overall; some conservation (not restoration) work was done at the rim (detached fragments with minor losses and chips mended by filling in the small cracks between them; these fills were inpainted and lightly waxed) and a small crack; surface cleaned and treated against salts.
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Stock number:
C1361