An ancient Attic Greek bilingual eye cup by Oltos; the tondo black-figured, with a cloaked youth walking right and looking back, holding an aulos and a cup; the exterior red-figured, each side with large abstract eyes flanked by palmettes; one side with a Nereid, likely Thetis, walking to the right, holding a small dolphin by the tail; and ancient riveted bronze repair to the lip.
Athens, Attica.
Ca. 520 BC.
Bilingual cups were painted in both the earlier black-figure and later red-figure techniques. Oltos, working in the last quarter of the 6th century BC, was an Athenian early red-figure vase-painter who also worked in black-figure. He signed two cups as painter (‘egrapsen’). He had a long career decorating a wide variety of shapes made by many potters. Though he painted the interiors of some bilingual kylikes in black-figure, he was essentially a red-figure painter. His work was of high quality and very many vases have been attributed to his hand on the basis of style.
cf.: for a Nikosthenic neck-amphora by Oltos in Paris, Louvre G3 with nearly identical Nereid holding two dolphins.
Formerly in a New York private collection; acquired from Galerie Nefer, Antike Kunst, Zurich, Switzerland in 1998.
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