Cycladic Marble Kandila

Culture: Cycladic

Period: Early Cycladic I, 3000-2900 B.C.

Material: Marble

Dimensions: 16.6 cm high

Price: Sold

Ref: 2397

Provenance: From the inventory of the judicially dissolved Parisian gallery La Reine Margot. Listed there with the inventory number 9694.

Condition: Lug handles broken out, restorations on the neck. One side of the Kandila with encrustations.

Description: Large marble stone vase from the early period of the Cycladic culture with a hemispherical corpus and four pierced lug handles. The rounded corpus thin-walled and translucent, the neck cylindrical. The heavy vessel stands on a slender high foot. In the early Bronze Age, inhabitants of the Cyclades processed the white marble of their islands into the famous idols and these stone vessels whose form has remained unique. The exact function of a “Kandila” (for their similarity they are named after the hanging lamps in Greek churches) is a mystery until today . Fact is that their production was very labour-intense. The marble block was not hollowed with metal tools, but with stones, bones and wood tools.