A PAESTAN RED-FIGURED BELL KRATER

ATTRIBUTED TO PYTHON, CIRCA 340-330 B.C.

Details

A PAESTAN RED-FIGURED BELL KRATER
ATTRIBUTED TO PYTHON, CIRCA 340-330 B.C.
The obverse with the recognition scene between Orestes and his sister Elektra at the tomb of their father Agamemnon, the tomb monument in the form of a fluted beribboned Ionic column on a stepped plinth, upon which sits the grieving Elektra, wearing a himation pulled up over her head, a hydria cradled in her lap and holding a lock of Orestes' hair, Orestes standing to the right dressed as a hunter in high laced boots, chlamys and pilos helmet, a sheathed sword slung over his shoulder, spear in his left hand, red fillet in his right, accompanied by a hound with raised paw, a bust of a Fury in the field above, with snakes on her head and at her shoulders; the reverse with two conversing sandalled and draped youths, wearing fillets; a large palmette below each handle, flanked by framing palmettes, a band of laurel below rim, a band of awave encircling below, details in added white, red and yellow
15½ in. (39 cm.) high

Provenance

Private collection, Switzerland; acquired from Eduard Burkhard Antiken, Basel, early 1970s.

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Lot Essay

Upon his return from the Trojan War, Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, is killed by his wife Clytemnestra. Their daughter, Elektra sends her brother Orestes into exile to protect him. According to Aeschylus' version in the 'Choephoroi', the second play in the Oresteia trilogy, many years later Clytemnestra, troubled by dreams, sends Elektra to Agamemnon's tomb to pour libations. There she meets her brother who had come to dedicate a lock of hair. Once the siblings are reunited they plot to avenge their father's death, which Apollo had ordered Orestes to carry out.

The recognition scene from the 'Choephoroi' inspired many South Italian vase-painters. For a hydria by Python with a similar scene, see A. D. Trendall, The Red-figured Vases of Paestum, Rome, 1987, p. 149, no. 250.

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