An Attic black-figure neck amphora. Attributed to the Painter of the Vatican, circa 365

The decoration enlivened with added crimson slip, side (a) depicting a bearded charioteer draped in a long chiton and driving a quadriga with the horses rearing, accompanied by a running hound and a flying bird, side (b) with two confronted bearded nude warriors, their swords drawn and held behind them, clutching scabbards in their other hands, with encircling bands of linked lotus buds and meander below the groundline, a band of rays emanating from the base, a ring of tongues below the neck, a frieze of linked palmettes and lotuses around the neck, 15 1/8in (38.5cm) high, repaired and restored. Estimate: £30,000 - 40,000

Provenance: Acquired at Sotheby's London, December 8th, 1994.

Exhibited: On loan to the Borchardt Library, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, February 1997 - April 2008.
On loan to the University of Melbourne, March 1988 - August 1993.

Published: Sotheby's London, Antiquities, December 8th, 1994, lot 126.
Sotheby's London, Antiquities, December 14th, 1981, lot 336.

J.D. Beazley, Attic Black Figure Vases-Painters, (Oxford 1956), 312.4-5, in Altenburg, Staatliches Lindenau-Museum, 211.

Literature: Cf. J. Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases, (London 1974), pp, 109-111, no.s 186-191.

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