Skip to main content
Bonhams
Search
Previous Lot
Next Lot
An Attic red-figure lekythos depicting a woman with faint Greek text image 1
An Attic red-figure lekythos depicting a woman with faint Greek text image 2
An Attic red-figure lekythos depicting a woman with faint Greek text image 3
American Private Collection (Lots 26-27)
Lot 27*

An Attic red-figure lekythos depicting a woman with faint Greek text

Antiquities
4 December 2025, 11:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street

£6,000 - £8,000

How to bidHow to buy

Ask about this lot

An Attic red-figure lekythos depicting a woman with faint Greek text

Attributed to the Nikon Painter, circa 470-450 B.C.
27.5cm high

Footnotes

Provenance:
with Galerie Archéologie Borowski, Paris in 1981.
Antiquities, Bonhams, London, 7-8 July 2022, lot 174.
American private collection, acquired at the above sale.

The scene with a woman wearing the peplos holding a box in one hand, while looking back towards a stool, has in the field above, two faintly visible lines of nonsensical Greek letters in red appearing to be: ΑΗΔΣΛΛ ΗΑΣΛΛ, a band of meander above and below the scene, the ghost image of a section of meander is visible on the black glaze.

Known for producing mostly small amphorae and lekythoi. The painter's real name is unknown, but has been called the Nikon painter as he signed some of his vases using this name and 'kalos'. The ghost image of a section of the meander pattern would have occurred during the drying process after firing when it was touching another vase, in this case with identically formed meander.

Additional information