Fragments of the Sophilos Dinos

Detail of the Sophilos dinos © David Gill

The Sophilos dinos in the British Museum has been reconstructed from approximately 50 fragments. It was acquired in 1971 from the Honourable Robert Erskine. Brian Shefton knew of the dinos in 1962, and Paul Zanker noted in 1965 that the dinos resided in an English private collection.

Fragments of the dinos were placed on loan from the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1977/78 (and were deaccessioned in 1983): they had been acquired from from Max and Lynda Palevsky in 1976. The couple were the source of numerous figure-decorated fragments acquired by the Getty, including dinos fragments attributed to Kleophrades (and connected with fragments derived from Malcolm Wiener and Jonathan Rosen).

Two further fragments of the London Sophilos dinos were acquired in 1978 from Bruce McNall's Summa Galleries in Beverly Hills (1, 2). 

Where did the Palevskys acquired their Sophilos fragments? And what about the Summa Galleries? Were they from the same source? When did Erskine acquire his fragments? Did he acquire them from, say, a Paris based antiquities dealer? And did that same dealer supply fragments to the gallery in Beverly Hills?

| |