ΞΕΠΟΥΛΙΕΤΑΙ ο αρχαίος «Κρατήρας με τους Πολεμιστές» του Ζωγράφου της Περσεφόνης! Εκτιμάται 280.000 ευρώ!!!

Του Γιώργου Λεκάκη

Ένα εξαιρετικό έργο τέχνης της
αρχαίας ελληνικής αττικής κεραμικής ένας κρατήρας (Bell Krater) «με πολεμιστές»,
κορυφαίο κομμάτι του «Ζωγράφου της Περσεφόνης» / Persephone Painter, ύψους 36 εκατ.
του 450 π.Χ. ξεπουλιέται σε δημοπρασία από την J. Bagot
Arqueología στην Βαρκελώνη της Ισπανίας…

Από τον λεγόμενο «Ζωγράφο της
Περσεφόνης» γνωρίζουμε μόνο 26 έργα![1]

«Οι λεπτομέρειες θα δοθούν
στον… αγοραστή»!!! λένε οι ξεπουλητές!!!

«Ανήκε», λένε επίσης, σε
ιδιωτική συλλογή κάποιου ανώνυμου (!!!) στο Βέλγιο, από την δεκαετία του 1970…

Έργο γνωστό από παλιά, αλλά κανείς δεν έκανε κάτι…. Αναφέρεται στα:

– Imagenes Praeteriti.
J. Bagot
Arqueología, Βαρκελώνη,
2016, εικ. 20.

– Puerta de los Dioses. J. Bagot Arqueología. Βαρκελώνη, 2016, εικ. 30.

– Lord of Truth. J. Bagot Arqueología. Βαρκελώνη, 2017, εικ. 31.

Και στις εκθέσεις

– TEFAF, Maastricht / Μάαστριχτ 2012, με τιμή 280.000 ευρώ!!! Και

– BRAFA, Βρυξέλλες, 2016.

ΠΗΓΗ: BOARDMAN J. «Athenian Red
Figure Vases», εκδ. Thames and Hudson
World of Art, 2003. ΑΡΧΕΙΟΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΥ, 22.6.2021.

Bell krater with a scene framed below on the body of the vase by a band
of meander and above, by a laurel leaf wreath around the outer rim of the bell.

The obverse, side A, is decorated with three warriors. The central one
is naked, is wearing a helmet, and carrying a spear and shield. The warrior on
the right is wearing a helmet and a breastplate, and is carrying a spear. The
one on the left is wearing a chlamys, sandals and a hat, and is carrying a
double spear.

On the reverse, side B, three athletes clothed in himations, can be seen
in conversation. The central one holds a sceptre and has a beard. The one on
the left is carrying a strigil.

The quality of the painting is the product of a master drawer, some
details such as the interior of the shield of the central figure if side A of
the vase makes this crater a masterpiece to be compared with the best known
works by the Persephone Painter and the attic vase painting of his period,
Athens 450’s B.C. in the middle of Persephone painter when he produced his most
refined works.

The Persephone Painter, who worked from about 475 to 425 BC, is the
pseudonym of an ancient Attic Greek vase painter, given this name by John
Beazley after his investigations of red-figure kraters to try to identify the
different artists. As in other cases, the name comes from one particular krater
that helped him to identify this particular artist, a krater on which is drawn
the mythological scene of the return of Persephone from Hades. This piece can
be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This painter is known
for his close relationship to the Achilles Painter, through whose workshop the
Persephone Painter passed.

There are only 26 works attributed to the Persephone Painter. Among them
there are both large and small vases. This indicates not only the importance of
this piece as an object, but also its rarity, as there are so few other pieces
of this master artist in existence. There are known to scholars only 3 other
bell kraters to exist by this artist, them all in public collections. The one
at New York (NY), Metropolitan Museum with inventory 1928.57.23 witch is the
vase that gives the name to this artist and the most celebrated vase by his
hand, one at Munich Antikensammlungen with inventory 8955 and one at the Toledo
(Ohio) Museum with inventory 1967.154. Our Krater is as fine as the best known
examples, the MET one and the one in Toledo. Also is the only known bell krater
by the Persephone painter still in private hands and the first one to appear
over the market on the last 6 decades, when the Metropolitan museum bought his
example.

We know also some calyx kraters and other large vases by this artist but
most of them not as refined as the bell kraters known. The shape of the bell
krater with a large, relatively flat areas gives the opportunity to a master
painter to produce large and detailed figures more than any other shape of
Greek vases.

The krater is a type of Greek pottery used to mix water and wine and
from which cups were filled. It was moved to the space were a meal was to be
eaten and was placed either on the ground or on a dais and the steward in
charge of drawing the wine used a ladle to pour it into the guests’ cups.
Kraters were mostly ceramic but some were made from precious metals, and were
made in a variety of shapes according to the taste of the artist, although they
did always have a wide mouth. The mostly widely occurring ones are column
kraters, calyx kraters, bell kraters and volute ones.

Red-figure pottery was one of the most important figurative styles of
Greek production. It developed in Greece around the year 530 BC and was used
until the 3rd Century BC. It took the place of the previously dominant style of
black-figure pottery within a few decades. The technical base was the same in
both cases, but in the red-figure pieces the colour was reversed, so that the
figures stood out against a dark background as if they were lit up by
theatrical lighting, following a more natural scheme. The painters who worked
with black figures were forced to keep motifs clearly separated one from the
other and to limit the complexity of the illustration. In contrast, the
red-figure technique allowed greater freedom. Each figure was silhouetted
against a dark background allowing the painters to render anatomic details with
greater exactitude and variety.

The technique consisted of painting motifs on a still moist piece, using
a transparent glossy slip which, on firing, took on an intense black
coloration. The motifs were therefore invisible before the firing and so
painters had to work completely from memory without seeing the result of their
work beforehand. Once the piece had been fired the zones not covered by the
slip retained the reddish tone of the clay, while those that had been “painted”
with the slip took on a dense, brilliant black coloration.