Cypriot large lentoid White Painted flask: Middle Bronze Age II-III (1850-1650BC)

large lentoid White Painted flask

Large and well preserved White painted Ware lentoid flask with double-reed small handle on one face by the neck and geometric bands of crosshatched triangles and lozenges.  The lentoid flask with flat rim is a shape found often in the Middle and late Bronze Age and beyond. See for example my LBA Red Lustrous Ware flask.  Here the vessel has a base which allows it to stand (a bit precariously) on a flat surface - very unusual for the Middle Bronze Age until the transition to the Late Bronze Age.  Partly for this reason, although it was sold to me as Middle Cypriot II, I believe it may be MC III. T he rows of triangles suggest it might have come from the Lapithos area.

 

Size: 20.9cm high

(Ex private collection, acquired in Switzerland 1980, sold Christie's, New York auction, Sale 2755, December 13, 2013 lot 0024A. subsequently sold in Artemis Gallery auction 13th February 2015 (lot 63) to Stephen Churley.)

(Aquired Stephen Churley collection August 2019)

DJ 159