Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
Lot 63*
An Attic lekythos in Six's Technique
6 July 2021, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond Street£6,000 - £8,000
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Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
An Attic lekythos in Six's Technique
Attributed to the Diosphos Painter, circa 525-475 B.C.
Depicting a satyr in profile to the right, his left leg raised, holding a kithara in his left arm, a lion following the satyr with its left forepaw aloft, the shoulder with a band of hanging lotus buds, rays around the base of the neck, details incised and in added red and white, 20cm high
Attributed to the Diosphos Painter, circa 525-475 B.C.
Depicting a satyr in profile to the right, his left leg raised, holding a kithara in his left arm, a lion following the satyr with its left forepaw aloft, the shoulder with a band of hanging lotus buds, rays around the base of the neck, details incised and in added red and white, 20cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
George Ortiz (1927-2013) collection, Switzerland.
Private collection, Switzerland, 1970s-1980s, gifted from the above.
Anonymous sale; Cahn Auktionen AG, Basel, 10 November 2015, lot 55.
Beazley Archive no. 9034536.
For another vase in Six's technique with a satyr, see C. Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekythoi, Paris, 1936, 236.89. For two further lekythoi in Six's Technique by the Diosphos Painter, both with satyrs and maenads, see Beazley Archive nos 14032 and 305522.
This lekythos is a rare example of 'Six's Technique', named after the Dutch scholar Jan Six, who coined the term in 1888. The Athenian potter Nicosthenes was one of the first to use this technique, and it continued to be in use between the end of the 6th Century to the middle of the 5th Century B.C., a comparatively short period of only one generation. Figures in white or red were painted onto a black-glazed background, where details could then be incised to reveal the underlayer of black. This technique combines the incision technique of black-figure vases with the visual impact of red-figure vases, having the brightly-coloured figures on top of a black background. Six's Technique was likely abandoned as it was less wear-proof than the usual black-figure and red-figure techniques, and was more difficult for the painter.