16 29th May 2010
london selection
“The English collection also provided four of the sale’s other top-priced classic 5th century Attic works”
continued from page 15
this has enabled the three characters to be placed so that only one is visible at a time on revolving the vase. It was also in good condition, having been reassembled from a clean break into two pieces. The piece came with a provenance back to the Ferruccio Bolla Collection in Lugano in 1911, after which it sold at auction in 1986 at Munzen and Medaillen in Switzerland. Offered last month with a substantial £150,000-250,000 guide, it duly found a buyer at £175,000.
The second vase attributed to the Antimenes painter came from a different source. This was a 151
/2 in (39cm) black
figure neck amphora painted to the shoulder with two pairs of apotropaic eyes, a seated figure of Dionysus and a running satyr. This had a provenance that could be taken back to c.1908, when it was in the Vogell Collection, Karlsruhe, with a subsequent sojourn in the Kervorkian Foundation. Importantly it had
also survived intact. More conservatively guided at £80,000-100,000, it sold for £140,000.
The English collection also provided four of the sale’s other top-priced classic 5th century Attic works, two of them pictured on the previous page. Over at Christie’s their best classic vase was the 14in (35.5cm) amphora of c.470 with red figure decoration attributed to the Berlin Painter. A piece with a provenance that was traceable back to the collection of the Earl of Sligo pre- 1958, this doubled a £70,000-90,000 guide to take £150,000. The South Italian pottery from the Goldfine collection offered in the afternoon at Christie’s was all pitched more affordably and attracted a competitive mix of trade and private bidders, with the result that much of it outstripped the estimates, sometimes dramatically so.
The most dramatic instance came when one of the mid 4th century fish plates, featuring decoration of a striped perch, a torpedo, and a cuttlefish and attributed to the so-called painter of Boston 282, was here pursued to no less than £62,000. Like many of the Goldfine pieces, this had been acquired relatively recently at auction, in this instance at Bonhams in 2005 for £4500. Prices for the other ten ranged from £8500 to
£1900 and most were secured by one determined private buyer, although they did not buy the most expensive example, which went to a different European collector of antiquities.
Although Classical pieces were the
strong suit at these April sales, there were notable results in other areas. Bonhams sold two pieces of ancient glass from the Eastern Mediterranean, a 53
/4 /2 in (14cm)
high flask moulded with snake trails at £46,000 and a pair of 71
olive green amphorae from the 4th century AD at £34,000.
Demand for Egyptian antiquities
remains strong and at Christie’s a particularly fine and rare bronze New Kingdom c.1550-1292BC shabti for the Steward of the House, Ipa proved highly popular. A piece with a provenance going back pre-1930, when it was acquired in Alexandria by law professor Maurice Bouvier. This went to a private European buyer for a double-estimate £46,000. There were also some strong prices for pieces of early Mycenean pottery from a 23-lot opening collection acquired by the vendor’s grandfather in the late 19th century. Early pottery like this rarely comes to market and the opportunity to purchase was seized by bidders who gave, for example, £36,000 for a 7in (18cm) high conical kylix, c.14-13th century BC, decorated with a stylised octopus.
in (19cm) high
Above: marble Roman torso of Aphrodite – £185,000 at Christie’s South Kensington.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80