Saturday 4 September 2010

The Medici Dossier and Corinthian Pottery

Just over a year ago US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers recovered a Corinthian krater from Christie's in New York. The krater had apparently passed through the hands of Giacomo Medici and then surfaced at auction in London. Evidence (presumably photographic from the Medici Dossier) demonstrated that the piece was "indeed part of Italy's cultural property". A complete krater like this had probably been removed from an ancient tomb, perhaps Etruscan.

I was struck by the image of another Corinthian piece from the Medici Dossier showing an archaic amphora decorated with a winged siren. Notice that the setting for the photograph appears to be very similar to the one used for the krater. Where is it now? Does it reside in a public or private collection? Is it part of a dealer's stock?

Note that another Corinthian krater was returned to Italy from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Such recently-surfaced pieces hinder the study of the distribution of archaic Corinthian pottery.

Images
Archaic Corinthian pottery featured in the Medici Dossier.

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1 comment:

oa said...

it does not look exacly the same but must be coming from a similar source
http://www.arteprimitivo.com/scripts/detail.asp?LOT_NUM=130452

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