Greek black-glaze lykinic lekanis, Athens, c.450-425 BC
Terracotta
Height: 10.9cm, diameter of dish: 12.7cm, diameter across the handles: 16.9cm
10798
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Composed of a low, broad bowl with an offset lip that inclines inwards and helps to hold the lid in place. A pair of handles extend out and upwards, above...
Composed of a low, broad bowl with an offset lip that inclines inwards and helps to hold the lid in place. A pair of handles extend out and upwards, above the level of the rim. The spreading foot has a downward-tilting outer face. The lid is faintly convex, the vertical sides sitting over the bowl’s inset rim. The wide, round- shouldered knop has a groove around the lower circumference dividing it in two, and is topped by a small disc; the tall stem on which it sits is concave and positioned on a raised plane. The lips of the bowl and cover, and the underside of the base, are reserved, the latter has a central dotted circle, the inner wall of the foot in black. Rycroft’s stylised initials ‘CWR’ and the number ‘67’ are written on the base and ’67’ again on the lid, in thin white paint. A further old collection number written on the base in brown ink ‘329’. The bowl recomposed from two pieces, a small triangular fragment reattached to the lip of the lid, some retouching to the handles.
The lekanis (pl. lekanides) was a type of container and a widely used household object, acting as a receptacle for food, spices, thread and even toys. The lekanis was part of the repertoire of gifts given to a bride on her wedding night. All of the vases from this group have a flat bowl, a low foot, two horizontal handles and, except for one class of lidless lekanides, a lid with knopped finial. In this catalogue we feature a sub- type of this group, known as a Lykinic lekanis. It is so called because of an example, now lost, that had the name ‘Lykinos’ scratched on the lid. It was made from the middle of the fifth century BC onwards but before the latter part of the century its offset rim disappeared, giving us a date beyond which this example cannot have been made. At this point the foot also began to take on a more elaborate profile.
Provenance
Sir Charles Alfred William Rycroft (1839–1884), London, UK
Charles Ede Ltd, London, UK; acquired Sotheby’s, June 1977
Private collection, New Jersey, USA; acquired from the above 1979
Literature
For the bowl compare Brian A. Sparkes and Lucy Talcott, The Athenian Agora, Vol.XII, Black and Plain Pottery of the 6th, 5th and 4th centuries BC, Part 2 (Princeton, 1970), no.1242 and for the lid see John W. Hayes, Greek and Italian Black-gloss Wares and Related Wares in the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, 1984), p.36, no.58
Also compare Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Ashmolean 2, pl.LXV, no.13 (1928.34)
Publications
Sotheby's, London, Antiquities, 27th June 1977, lot 199
Charles Ede Ltd, London, Pottery from Athens V , 1979, no.10