Red-figure Pelike attributed to the Ilioupersis painter

Greek art, Apulia, circa 360 B.C.
Beige-orange clay with black glaze and highlights of white and yellow paint
Restoration to neck and foot, otherwise body and painted decoration intact
Height: 41.5 cm

Provenance: Private collection of Mr. A..., Champ de Mars, Paris, before 1984, then by descent
Sale Gros et Delettrez, Paris, December 6, 2023, lot 85

Bibliography: Unpublished

Comparative bibliography: A.D. Trendall and Alexander Campbitoglou, The red figured vases of Apulia, Oxford, 1978, pp. 186-210

This peliké is a form of pot-bellied amphora designed to hold oil or wine. It is the work of a great painter of red-figure vases from Apulia, whose name is unknown. Nevertheless, consistent individual stylistic characteristics suggest the existence of a unique artistic personality that A. D. Trendall has dubbed the Painter of Ilioupersis, after the name of a scrolled crater in the British Museum on which he painted the Sack of Troy. He was instrumental in introducing new elements into Apulian vase painting and establishing the canon of monumental vases produced in the “ornate” style. He created large-scale mythological, dramatic, nuptial or funerary scenes, with figures on two or more levels, and decorated with many added colors, especially yellow and white. He introduced the elaborate type of scrolled funerary krater with a naiskos scene on the front and figures around a stele on the reverse. The young man standing with his arm raised is identical to Pylades on the Iphigenia and Orestes scrolled crater in the Naples Museum. Another scrolled crater features a mirror, as here, surmounted by a tree. A similarity can be seen with the Catania pelike (RVAP 8/20 - LIMC Hesperides 4). A number of vases in a wide variety of shapes can be attributed to his hand on the basis of style. Our peliké is a magnificent example, rare on the market, made by one of the major figures in Apulian ceramics in the first half of the 4th century BC.