Greek - Ancient Pottery for Sale
Although some ancient Greek pottery was intended for decoration or for presentation, the majority was made for everyday use, mainly in the preparation and serving of food and drink, or for the bath, and can be divided in four broad categories - storage and transport vessels, mixing vessels, jugs and cups and vases for oils, perfumes and cosmetics.
Most surviving Greek pottery consists of drinking vessels such as amphorae, kraters (bowls for mixing wine and water), hydria (water jars), libation bowls, jugs and cups. Miniatures were also produced in large numbers, mainly for use as offerings at temples.
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Early Greek Attic Black-Figure Lekythos
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Early pottery Lekythos (vessel for holding oils) from Athens, ca 540 BC. Decorated in black-figure technique, showing warrior in full battle gear - Corinthian helmet,
$5,950.00
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Greek Attic Plastic Pottery Flask
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Very rare and desirable ancient pottery vessel from Greece, Ca 4th century BC. In a style called "plastic," due to the realistic molded shapes, not material used in...
$2,795.00
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Hellenistic Figure of Eros
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Delightful late Greek pottery figure of Eros, most likely from the Greek colony of Canosa, ca. 300 to 200 B.C. Striding Eros with small wings extending from back,
$495.00
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Greek Campanian Blackware Oinochoe
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Ca 4th to 3rd century B.C., from the Greek colony of Campania in southern Italy. Blackware pouring vessel; Simple, elegant design with trefoil spout, single strap...
$595.00 SOLD
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Cypriot White Slip Ware Jug
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Dating to the Late Cypriot Period, ca. 1600 to 1050 BC. Terracotta pottery pouring vessel decorated with white slip and painted with several swastikas and abstract...
$795.00 SALE PENDING
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Greek Boeotian Goddess, Ex-Christie's
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Rare style! Ca. 6th century B.C., from the Greek city-state of Boeotia; painted buff terracotta of standing abstract female goddess – possibly of fertility and...
$2,495.00
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A Hellenistic Terracotta Askos - Huge!
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Canosan, ca. 3rd century B.C. This particular class of vases of Canosa make up a most extreme class of funerary styles of the Hellenistic period. Typically pieces of...
$14,250.00
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Greek Corinthian Painted Aryballos
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Near-mint condition! From ancient Greece, Corinth, ca. 6th century B.C. Terracotta pottery oil flask in longer, elongated form (a variation of the more typical...
$925.00
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Greek Hellenistic Rattle in Breast Form
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Very rare and quite desirable ancient pottery baby rattle in the form of a female breast. Ca. 200 BC, molded circular breast with distinct nipple and incised areola,
$625.00
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The painted decoration of ancient Greek pottery has become the primary source of information about the development of Greek pictorial art. Made in a variety of sizes and shapes, according to its intended use - large vessels were used for storage and transportation of liquids (wine, olive oil, water), while smaller pots were used for perfumes and unguents. The earliest style, known as the Geometric style (ca. 1000 – 700 B.C.), features geometric patterns and, eventually, narrative scenes with stylized figures. From the late 8th to the early 7th century, a growing Eastern influence resulted in the “Orientalizing” of motifs (e.g., sphinx, griffin), notably in pieces made in Corinth (ca. 700 B.C.), where painters developed black-figure vases. Athenians adopted both the black-figure and red-figure style, and became the dominant manufacturers of Greek pottery. By the 4th century the figured decoration of pottery had declined, and by the end of the century it had died out in Athens.
