Art Institute of ChicagoPublic domain

Lekythos (Oil Jar)

Achilles Painter · 445-440 BCE

Analyst brief

What the record supports

This white-ground terracotta lekythos (oil jar) was created by the Achilles Painter in Athens between 445-440 BCE. Measuring 30.8 x 9.8 cm, it is classified as a vessel and resides within the Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium department. The artist's nationality, birth year, and death year are not provided in the catalogue data.

The object's provenance indicates it was owned by Alphonse van Branteghem in Brussels by 1890, then sold at Hôtel Drouot in 1892 to Martin A. Ryerson. Ryerson subsequently gifted it to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907. It has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in various galleries since 1994.

The lekythos is extensively documented in several publications, including works by Wilhelm Fröhner, John H. Oakley, and John D. Beazley. No comparable auction prices are available from the supplied catalogue data, and the artist's full biographical details are not present.

Generated from the catalogue fields shown on this page. Nartmad does not assert attributions, valuations or prices that no cited source supports.

Provenance

Ownership history

Alphonse van Branteghem, Brussels, by 1890; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 30-June 1, 1892, lot 181, to Martin A. Ryerson (1856-1932), Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1907.

Recorded by Art Institute of Chicago.

Exhibitions

Exhibition history

Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 151, November 11, 2012 - present.

Literature

Published references

Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of objects of Greek ceramic art: exhibited in 1888 (London, 1888), pl. 13, no. 56.
Wilhelm Fröhner, Collection van Branteghem: Vases peints et terre cuites antiques (Paris, 1892), no. 181.
Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 1, 1 (1907), pp. 12-13.
John H. Oakley, The Achilles Painter (Mainz: Von Zabern, 1997), 150 no. 268, pl. 138 c-d.
John D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, volume II (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 1000, no. 199.
John Griffiths Pedley, Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, vol. 20, no. 1 (1994), pp. 43, 45, 47 (iil), no. 28.
Olga E. Tzachou-Alexandri, Leukes Likythoi tou Zoographou tou Achilleos sto Ethniko Archaiologiko Mouseio (Athens, 1998), p. 77, fig. 14.
Karen B. Alexander, "From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago," in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), pp. 22, 38.

Comparables