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Lot Essay
For the Epilykos Class see J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1963, p. 1530. For a similar aryballos by the Epilykos Class see the example in the British Museum (1836.2-24.359), which preserves its vessel neck and handles. Another aryballos in the Athens National Museum (2050) has one handle remaining. Both of these vessels have similar facial characteristics to the present lot. For a double-head flask in the Louvre (CA 987), also by the Epilykos Class, see B. Cohen, The Colors of Clay, Special Techniques in Athenian Vases, Los Angeles, 2006, pp. 268-286, no. 79, which represents the head of an Ethiopian male and a young Caucasian woman. Cohen explains that heads made from the same mould occur singly or conjoined, and that the one in the Louvre with conjoined female heads is inscribed EPILYKOS KALOS, whence the name for this Class of head vase derives. "It is commonly employed by the bilingual vase-painter Skythes, who thus has been associated with the decoration of these miniature masterpieces" (Cohen, op. cit., p. 269).
Depictions of black Africans can be found already in the Bronze Age, as seen on Minoan and Cypriot art of the 2nd millennium B.C. In Egypt during the 7th and 6th centuries the Greeks came into contact with a large number of black Africans for the first time. One of the earliest head flasks depicting the black African comes from Cyprus and dates to the late 7th-early 6th century B.C. It shows the janiform heads of a white man and a black man - it seems that Greek artists were fascinated by the contrast of the physical characteristics of Africans and Caucasians and explored this through this type of janiform head flask into the 6th and 5th centuries.
Depictions of black Africans can be found already in the Bronze Age, as seen on Minoan and Cypriot art of the 2nd millennium B.C. In Egypt during the 7th and 6th centuries the Greeks came into contact with a large number of black Africans for the first time. One of the earliest head flasks depicting the black African comes from Cyprus and dates to the late 7th-early 6th century B.C. It shows the janiform heads of a white man and a black man - it seems that Greek artists were fascinated by the contrast of the physical characteristics of Africans and Caucasians and explored this through this type of janiform head flask into the 6th and 5th centuries.