Circa 500 BC, Athens An elegant figural oinochoe depicting the bust of a lovely lady, perhaps a maenad, her visage presenting almond-shaped eyes delineated in black with white sclera, long arched brows in black, a naturalistic nose, full closed lips, delicate facial contours, a fringe of curls rendered as three rows of dots in bas relief framing her forehead, all capped by a black saccos adorned with a white leafy wreath. She boasts a long slender neck with a black band at the bottom suggesting the collar of her garment. The vessel's trefoil mouth rises from her head and is joined to the back of her head via a raised loop handle. The curatorial description of a similar example (attributed to the Cook Class) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession number 01.8.7) states, "Head vases became important in Attic vase-painting at the end of the sixth century B.C. and continued almost through the fifth. Considerable numbers of these small examples exist, mostly with the head of a woman but occasionally with that of Herakles or another male figure. Since the Greeks tended not to waste valuable materials on funerary offerings, one wonders whether such pieces contained a token dedication. See another similar oinochoe in the Kinsky Palace, Prague collection (NM-HM10 1904). For another similar oinochoe published in J. Eisenberg, Art of the Ancient World, 1985, no. 82; J. Eisenberg, One Thousand Years of Ancient Greek Vases II, 2010, no. 147; J. Eisenberg, Art of the Ancient World, 2010, no. 147 - exhibited at Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University, 1985-2009. Size: L:170mm / W:90mm; 755g Provenance: Property of an Ancient Art London Gallery, acquired by a private British collector, formerly in Orange County, California, USA collection; ex-property of a New York Gallery; ex-Rhode Island collection, ex Sotheby’s, New York, USA, December 10, 2009, lot #82.