SIGNED BY TLESON AS POTTER AND ATTRIBUTED TO THE TLESON PAINTER, CIRCA 545-535 B.C.

Details

AN ATTIC BLACK-FIGURED LIP-CUP
SIGNED BY TLESON AS POTTER AND ATTRIBUTED TO THE TLESON PAINTER, CIRCA 545-535 B.C.
8 ½ in. (21.5 cm.) diameter

Provenance

with Münzen und Medaillen, Basel.
Emery E. George (1933-2016), Trenton, acquired from the above, 1969.

Literature

R. Blatter, "Einige neue Töpfersignaturen," Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1968, pp. 1-2, no 5.
J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 75, no. 75.9 ter.
K. Schauenburg, "Zu attischen Kleinmeisterschalen," Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1974, p. 218, fig. 30.
R. Blatter, "Signatur oder Werkstattbezeichnung," Antike Welt 8, heft 3, p. 57, fig. 2A.
J.T. Haldenstein, Little Master Cups, Studies in 6th century Attic Black-Figure Vase Painting (Ph.D. diss. University of Cincinnati), 1982, p. 74.
T.H. Carpenter, Beazley Addenda, second edition, Oxford, 1989, p. 50, no. 179.9 ter.
H.R. Immerwahr, A Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions, Chapel Hill, 1998, p. 593, no. 2097.
P. Heesen, Athenian Little-Master Cups, Amsterdam, 2011, pp. 198 and 300, no. 343, pls. 96.d and 97.f.
Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 350722.

Lot Essay

Each side of this lip-cup is inscribed "Tleson son of Nearchos made me." Tleson was a potter specializing in Little Master Cups. Beazley considered that the majority of Tleson's cups were the work of one painter, the Tleson Painter. The tondo of the present cup, with a snake hovering above a cock with its head turned back, is possibly unique according to Heesen (op. cit., p. 198).

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