Rare Faliscan Red-Figure Epichysis - Leda & The Swan

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Ancient | Ethnographic | Fine Art

By Artemis Gallery

Feb 6, 2019

Set Reminder 2019-02-06 10:00:00 2019-02-06 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Ancient | Ethnographic | Fine Art https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/artemis-gallery/ancient-ethnographic-fine-art-3848
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• Lot Description
  Magna Graecia, Southern Italy, Faliscan, ca. 325 to 300 BCE. A beautiful wheel-thrown pottery pouring vessel known as an epichysis with a slight concave base beneath a spool-shaped body, a tiered shoulder, a conical neck base, a projecting spout, and an applied strap handle joining spout to shoulder. Decorated via the red-figure technique, the iconographic register portrays a minimalist depiction of Leda and the Swan flanked by flowing, tendril-form motifs. Leda and the Swan face inwards towards one another, the fowl with a bulbous body and delineated feathers and Leda bearing a sweet smile and a kekryphalos hairstyle, each embellished with fugitive white pigment atop a black-glazed ground. A register of radiating tongues adorns the neck base while dense rays embellish the shoulder rim, and a singular palmette is presented behind the handle. The squat composition of the vessel as well as the recognizable figural depictions make this an exceedingly rare example of Faliscan artistry! Size: 3.375" W x 4.25" H (8.6 cm x 10.8 cm).
  
  The swan played a complex role in Greek mythology - as the attribute of Aphrodite and Apollo, said to sing a song of unearthly beauty as it dies. The avian form assumed by Zeus, as seen in this example, was utilized as a symbolic "wolf in sheep's clothing" to ravish Leda, Queen of Sparta. Leda was the daughter of Thestios, the King of Pleuron, and was thought to be one of the most beautiful women in creation. Zeus, observing her beauty from his throne on Mount Olympus for years, decided to engage in relations with Leda when she came of age. On the day Leda was to marry Tyndareus, King of Sparta, Zeus assumed the form of a graceful swan and presented himself to the unsuspecting woman. After impregnating Leda on the day she was to lay with her new husband, she bore two eggs from which her four children were hatched: from Zeus, Helen of Troy and Polydeucus; from Tyndareus, Castor and Clytemnestra.
  
  Provenance: private New York, New York, USA collection; ex-private E. C. collection, Franconia, New Hampshire, USA, acquired in the 1920s and 1930s
  
  All items legal to buy/sell under U.S. Statute covering cultural patrimony Code 2600, CHAPTER 14, and are guaranteed to be as described or your money back.
  
  A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany all winning bids.
  
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  #139425

  Condition

  Repairs to shoulder and handle with minor nicks, some overpainting, and light adhesive residue along break lines. Surface wear and abrasions commensurate with age, small losses to shoulder and rim of base, chips and fading to areas of glazing and applied pigmentation, and some darkening to pigmentation. Nice earthen deposits throughout. Old inventory stickers beneath base.
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