OTHER PROPERTIES A GREEK BRONZE HYDRIA, CIRCA EARLY 5TH CENTURY B.C.

with ogee foot ornamented with fluted and engraved tongues, overhanging rim molded with egg-and-dart beneath beading, and fluted lifting handles each engraved with radiating tongues on the circular attachments, the fluted pouring handle with upper attachment engraved with palmettes and lower attachment cast in high relief with two confronted sphinxes on a large inverted palmette, two punched inscriptions on top of the rim.

PROVENANCE

German private collection, 1989
CATALOGUE NOTE

Inscriptions on bronze hydriai typically identify the vessels either as prizes in athletic competitions (e.g. Sotheby's, New York, December 9th, 2004, no. 294) or as dedications to gods (e.g. Sotheby's, New York, June 12th, 2001, no. 71). The two inscriptions on the present example, however, are unusual in that they each record a separate gift of the hydria made by a woman to another woman: "Skapsis gave [this] to Hermaia; Kytis gave [this] to Philoxene;" the inscriptions are in two different hands but use the same type of archaic/late archaic Greek script. An inscription on a hydria from the island of Thasos registers a gift of the vessel made by Diogenes to Nikkipa, where the recipient is again feminine (see Erika Diehl, Die Hydria. Formgeschichte und Verwendung im Kult des Altertums, Mainz am Rhein, 1964, p. 218, B116). Hydriai may have been suitable gifts for women in ancient Greece, considering their function as water-carrying vessels.