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Red-figured pelike attributed to the Ilioupersis painter, Around 360 BC

Exhibited by Antoine Tarantino

Material Black varnished beige-orange clay with white and yellow paint highlights

Dimensions 41.5 × 20 cm

Place of Creation Apulia

Price €34,998

Status Vetted

About the Work

This pelike is a form of pansue amphora intended to contain oil or wine. It is the work of a great red-figured vase painter from Apulia whose name is unknown. Nevertheless, consistent individual stylistic features suggest the existence of a unique artistic personality that A. D. Trendall christened the painter of Ilioupersis, after a scrolled crater in the British Museum on which he painted the Sack of Troy. He helped to introduce new elements into the painting of Apulian vases and to establish the canon of monumental vases produced in the "orné" style. He created mythological, dramatic, nuptial or funerary scenes on a large scale, with characters on two or more levels, and decorated with many added colors, especially

yellow and white. He introduced the elaborate type of voluted funerary crater with a scene of naiskos on the front and figures around a stele on the reverse. Martine Denoyelle, whom we thank for her help, noted that the young man standing with his arm raised finds himself on the Pylade of the volute crater of Iphigénie and Oreste from the museum of Naples. On another voluted crater, we find the mirror, like here, surmounted by a tree. A proximity can be noticed with the Pelike of Catania (RVAP 8/20 – LIMC Hesperides 4). A number of vases of very varied shapes can be attributed to his hand on the basis of style.

Our Pelike is a magnificent example, rare on the market, made by one of the major personalities of Apulian ceramics from the first half of the fourth century BC.

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