Lord Elgin collected more than just the Parthenon Marbles. He collected a Greek treasure consisting of items big and small, few of which have seen the light of day.
Now a 2,500-year-old flask that once belonged to the 19th century diplomat is being sold at auction.
Elgin’s Greek vessel
The 6.75-inch (17cm) decorated lekythos, or ancient Greek oil flask, would originally have been used in a bathhouse or gymnasium when it was crafted in around 450 BC, according to auctioneers Timeline Auctions.
The vessel was subsequently acquired by Lord Elgin and is expected to sell for between £800 and £1,000, along with other ancient artifacts being auctioned by Timeline Auctions on June 6.
In a statement, Timeline Auctions said: “This Timeline Auction sale is a snapshot of the wealth of valuable items still in the hands of the general public.
“Now and then some of it makes it to an auction valuer who is blown away by this new discovery now lying in his or her trembling hands.
“It comes as no surprise to find that when a house that is part of a deceased estate is cleared, all manner of things emerge.
“Over the years auctioneers have found gold coins knotted into socks shoved into the very back of sock drawers, and in one case a shrink-wrapped Faberge tea service, placed carefully in the cold-water tank in the attic of a house that was being cleared after the death of the last member of the family that had lived there for decades.”
Among the other items being auctioned is a 30in-high (76cm) monumental krater, or vase, referred to as the ‘hero horse vase’, which dates from around 330BC and features a central image of a warrior with a white horse.
Monumental kraters were often used as grave markers in cemeteries, and this example, said by Timeline Auctions to be typical of the Apulian red-figure pottery produced between 440-300BC in Greek colonial regions in Southern Italy, has an estimated sale price of £50,000 – £70,000.
Lord Elgin’s theft of the Parthenon Marbles
Thomas Bruce, also known as Lord Elgin, was the 7th Earl of Elgin and the English ambassador in Constantinople when he stole precious ancient sculptures from the Parthenon to take to England in the late summer of 1801, marking the beginning of the long dispute of their ownership.
The Scottish diplomat was a known art collector, and the time was a very different one from our own, but even then, there was a major outcry in Britain against his removing them from the Parthenon.
From 1801 to 1804, Elgin’s crews worked on the Acropolis, causing considerable damage to the sculptures and the monument itself. They chipped away and divided up as spoils nearly half of the sculptures decorating the Parthenon, along with some architectural pieces from the structure of the building.
The first metopes from the Parthenon were removed on July 31st to August 1st, 1802. Hoards of looted antiquities were then packed in wooden boxes and transported by sea to England.