Black-Glazed Pyxis with Lid — based on Attic prototype of the mid-5th century BCE.
In his gallery’s landmark exhibition on black-glaze pottery, Jamie Ede of Charles Ede, London, singled out a small pyxis — or lekanis — as one of the most treasured pieces he had handled: one of the first he ever sold, formerly in an aristocratic English collection, with a lid so precisely made that it fitted perfectly in only one position. It is this quiet standard of form and precision that this piece recalls.
The pyxis represents black-glaze pottery at its most refined: a low, rounded vessel on a small footed base, covered in a deep, lustrous black glaze. The surface is interrupted only by a fine line of exposed terracotta at the rim and the unglazed knob of the lid, revealing the warm clay beneath. No decoration is needed. The form does everything.
Similar variations of the type are published in Agora XII, no. 324, pl. 42, and Kerameikos IX, no. 54, pl. 83.
Dimensions: L. 10.0 cm, H. 7.5 cm