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Ancient Greek Perfume Bottle
About the Item
Athenian Black-glaze perfume pot with inscription
Athens, c. 425-400 B.C.
Terracotta
Measures: Height: 9cm; diameter across lip: 7.5cm; width including handle: 9cm
This 5th Century B.C. perfume pot from Athens is a fine testament to the elegance of Classical Greek pottery. A strap handle joins the rounded body to the lip, which flares out and forms a saucer-like shape. The surface is covered in a dark, lustrous sheen, which would have been achieved by applying an iron-rich slip to the clay before it was fired, turning it an almost metallic shade of black. This style is referred to as Black Glazed Ware, and was first developed in Athens as early as the 8th Century B.C. Within a few hundred years, particularly within the 6th-3rd Centuries, these ceramics were among Athens’ most important exports, well known, in their own day as well as among modern collectors, for their radiant finish and clarity of form. Likely owing to a misfire during its production, one side of the pot has taken on a dark orange colour, lending the whole vessel a mottled black and copper patina.
An incised inscription reads: SKY, suggested to be the beginning of the word S???a or S?????, translating as ‘Scythia’ and ‘Scythian’, perhaps implying that this vessel once belonged to a Scythian foreigner - the Scythians were a nomadic people who lived across the Eurasian Steppe from around the 11th century B.C. to the 2nd century A.D.; owing to their well-known proficiency on horseback, some scholars have speculated that these people served as the inspiration for the centaurs of Greek myth.
This type of perfume pot, the Talcott Class, was named after the archaeologist Lucy Talcott, co-author of Volume XII of the Athenian Agora series, a compendium containing the recorded finds from the Athenian Agora, the excavation of which officially began in 1931, and continues to this day. This shape is believed to be closely modelled on a metalware form.
“The Greeks were the first to discover the beauty of simple lines and surfaces, the beauty of pure geometry. They knew how to give a divine and almost supernatural quality to the simplest and most elementary forms. They transformed them with light and shadow, made them alive with the sensuous qualities
of the material. The Greeks understood the pure beauty of form, the beauty of pure relation, the harmony of surfaces in relation to surfaces, and the simple beauty of line and mass.”
Le Corbusier
Provenance:
Private collection, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, UK; acquired in the late 19th or early 20th Century
Subsequently with Charles Ede Gallery, London
Literature:
Greek Black Glaze, Charles Ede Gallery, 2021, p. 40.
- Dimensions:Height: 3.55 in (9 cm)Width: 3.55 in (9 cm)Depth: 2.96 in (7.5 cm)
- Style:Classical Greek (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:425-400 BC
- Condition:
- Seller Location:London, GB
- Reference Number:
About the Seller
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Associations
LAPADA - The Association of Arts & Antiques DealersInternational Confederation of Art and Antique Dealers' AssociationsThe British Antique Dealers' Association
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: London, United Kingdom
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
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