Three Apulian Red-Figured Plates of the Menzies Group

Culture: Greek/Apulian

Period: 340-320 B.C.

Material: Terracotta

Dimensions: 22.6 cm, 22.6 cm and 22.8 cm in diameter

Price: 32 000 Euro

Ref: 2381

Provenance: Private collection Michael Minnick, New York, acquired from Robert Peters, PhD, New York, in the 1980s. With a copy of the handwritten attribution by A.D. Trendall.

Condition: Two plates reassembled from a few pieces without missing parts, one intact.

Description: An important ensemble of three extremely finely crafted, red-figured plates with details in opaque white, attributed by Arthur D. Trendall to the Menzies Group, Group of the Trieste Askoi. One plate depicts a seated goddess or priestess wrapped in a long gown. She holds a striped sceptre and wears a magnificent diadem. In front of her is a finely painted thymiaterion on curved animal legs. Behind the elaborately crafted throne of the goddess tainiae. The scene is framed by a band of laurel leaves. The other two plates each depict a nude Eros with open wings. On one of them, Eros is standing with his left leg on a rock and holding a mirror in front of his face. The other plate depicts Eros running to the left with a fan and a fillet. Elaborate flowers and plants decorate both scenes. The Eros on the rock is framed by a wavy band, the running one by laurel leaves. All three plates have tongues decoration on the rim and stand on finely profiled ring feet. The plates were attributed by the archaeologist Arthur D. Trendall, the expert in South Italian vase painting, in handwritten correspondence to the Menzies Group, to the subgroup of the Trieste Askoi, and are published in the "Supplements to the Red-figured Vases of Apulia".