A red-figured squat lekythos with a broad, flat body on a ring foot. Neck, slightly offset from the shoulder; above, a wide echinus mouth. The shape is designed to hold oil or perfume. On an egg-pattern ground line, a woman stands facing left, wearing a chiton and himation; her hair bound in a sakkos. Eros flies towards her from the left, carrying a chest. Between them, a kalathos (wool basket) signals that the scene is set in the gynaeceum. Attributed to the Washing Painter by J.D. Beazley, this lekythos exemplifies the graceful style of this painter, and his preference for wedding imagery, well attested on his pyxides, loutrophoroi and nuptial lebetes. Shiny black glaze; minor retouches of the varnish; small chip filled with toned plaster on mouth and handle; concretions beneath the foot; otherwise intact.
PROVENANCE
Formerly priv. coll. Kussmaul, Basel. With MuM AG, Basel, auction XVI, 30.06.1956, lot 139. Thereafter, priv. coll. Erika (b. 1934 - d. 2025) and Jakob (b. 1927 - d. 2025) Binkert, Binningen, Switzerland; inherited from Jakob's father, August Binkert-Textor (b. 1896 - d. 1979), collected between 1940-1970, Basel. Since then in the family. See Widmer negative no 640, dated 03.1956. Publ. Beazley AVR2, 1961, cat. no. 191.
NOTE
On the painter, see ARV² 1126–35; Paralipomena 453–54, 517; Addenda² 332–33. The Washing Painter takes his name from the scenes of women bathing that he painted on a group of small hydriai. Martin Robertson (The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens, Cambridge 1992, 223–27) suggests that he may have trained in the Achilles Painter's workshop, alongside the Phiale Painter. The shape is rare and may be specific to the Washing Painter and his workshop, though it can be compared with a squat lekythos attributed to the Achilles Painter, formerly in the Philadelphia market (BAPD 4655; J. H. Oakley, The Achilles Painter (Mainz/Rhein 1997), cat. no. 162). See also Wolf W. Rudolph, Die Bauchlekythos (Bloomington 1971), 40, category VIII.C. ('Klasse des Washing-Malers').