
Francesca Hickin
Head of Department
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£3,000 - £4,000
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Head of Department

Senior Specialist
Provenance:
Anonymous sale; Fischer, Luzern, Auktion 404, 10-15 June 2009, lot 3886 (part).
with Rhea Gallery, Zurich.
Property from a Princely Collection, acquired from the above.
Accompanied by a thermoluminescence test from Oxford Authentication Ltd, dated 2 April 2024.
Attic head vases became popular in the 5th Century B.C. The vast majority of the known examples depict female heads; black Africans, such as the above lot, are much rarer survivals. There are oinochoae of the same subject as the above lot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 00.11.1 and the Getty Museum, no. 83.AE.229. As extensive traders, the Greeks came across Africans over many centuries and they are mentioned from Homer's Iliad through to Herodotus's Histories.