Rare Greek Marble Pyxis with Lid, Ex Voto, Attribution Verified, Late 5th - Early 4th Century B.C.

(Rare Greek Marble Pyxis)

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Item No.
30.36024
Culture
Greek, Late 5th - Early 4th Century B.C. 
Item Details.
Description. White marble. Stemmed vessel in two parts. The foot is a turned circular plinth carried on three small feet, rising through a compressed baluster knop to a projecting torus moulding, above which the body opens as an inverted truncated cone. The body terminates in a broad horizontal flange with a raised outer edge. The lid, set within the flange, is stepped in concentric mouldings and carries a tall baluster finial with a collar at its base and a bud-shaped terminal. All elements are lathe-turned, the profiles crisp and the transitions between mouldings sharply cut.

Technique. Vessels of this kind stand apart from the main current of Greek stone-working. Marble in the Classical period is above all the material of architecture and of monumental sculpture, and its use for small containers is exceptional; the Metropolitan Museum, discussing its own example, remarks on precisely this, and singles the piece out for its precision and delicacy. The reason is technical as much as economic. A vessel of this profile is not carved but turned: the concentric mouldings, the sharp arrises and the fit between lid and flange are products of the lathe, and they belong to the same family of workmanship as turned wooden boxes and the ivory pyxides that stood at the top of the range. Marble brings to that tradition a material that is far harder to work thin, and far more likely to be lost to a single misjudged cut. The plain surfaces should not be read as austerity: the Metropolitan notes that its example was in all probability painted, and the mouldings of the present piece would have carried colour in the same way.

Rarity and museum comparanda. Greek marble pyxides survive in small numbers, and the principal group in a public collection is that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, acquired in 1978 through the Bothmer Purchase Fund. It includes examples of the late 5th to early 4th century BC ranging from about 8 to 20 cm in height, several of them classified as Attic. One of these, inv. 1978.11.14a, b (H. 20.2 cm, diam. 11.7 cm), is on permanent display in Gallery 156 at The Met Fifth Avenue. The same museum holds a further marble vase in the form of a pyxis surmounted by an oinochoe, of the 4th to 3rd century BC, which shows that crowning the lid of a marble pyxis with a turned superstructure was an established option within the class. The present piece belongs to that tradition, and its tall baluster finial and stemmed foot place it among the more elaborate examples of it.

Function. The pyxis is a container for cosmetics, unguents, small ornaments and jewellery. Executed in marble it moves out of the sphere of ordinary toilet equipment and into that of display: an object of this cost was made to be seen as much as used. Vessels of the class are recovered both from graves, where they form part of the personal equipment of the deceased, and from sanctuaries, where they were dedicated. Dedication of fine vessels is among the best-attested forms of Greek votive practice, and a marble pyxis would sit naturally within it, in the range of gifts more valuable than the pottery that makes up the bulk of sanctuary deposits. Which of the two contexts applies to a given example is established by the findspot or by a dedicatory inscription. In the absence of either, the proper statement about the present piece is that it is of a type suited to dedication in a sanctuary as readily as to deposition in a tomb.

Provenance: European private collection, Mr. H. D. acquired prior to 2000 on the European art market.

Attribution verified by accredited archaeologist, specialist in Ancient Mediterranean Ceramics and Numismatics.
Size
18 cm total H - 7 1/16 inches
Material
Marble 
Condition
Lid repaired, otherwise intact 
Categories
Greek
Price.
US$ 7000
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