LONDON, ENGLAND.- Bonhams will hold its Antiquities sale. A Bonhams employee examines an Attic red-figure "Kalos" kylix during a preview of Bonhams? Antiquities Sale in London, England. The red-figure stemmed dish from Athens, known as a kylix, highlights the importance of homo-erotic love to the ancient Greeks. The kylix dates from circa 510-500 BC and is expected to fetch between 100-150,000 GDP. Highlighting the importance of homo-erotic love to the ancient Greeks is an important red-figure stemmed dish, known as a kylix, which will be offered at Bonhams’ Antiquities Sale on 28 October.

The subject matter of this red-figure dish embodies the freedom to express homosexual love – a hotly contested freedom that has returned after two and a half millennia. This kylix from Athens, dating from circa 510-500 B.C., shows a naked boy looking up adoringly into the eyes of an older male, shown naked and partially clad in a himation revealing his genitalia, with a striped fringe to the garment. He faces the boy with his right arm draped across his shoulder, his left arm gesturing towards him, wearing a leafy wreath, his hair dressed with three long strands falling across his chest and three rows of curls above his forehead shown in relief. He holds a hoop and a stick, a strigil, aryballos and sponge used for bathing in the field above. A Greek inscription in added wine-coloured slip in the field around them reads (translated), “Athenodotos is beautiful.”

The exterior of the plate is decorated with an arming scene showing a central youth wearing a short chiton below the waist and a wine coloured fillet in his fringed hair, bending down to put a greave on his right leg. Before him stands a bearded warrior wearing a chlamys with a fringed border, the Corinthian helmet with a long flowing horse-tail crest, holding a spear and large circular shield, its straps visible. Behind the youth stand two further warriors looking on at the scene, one apparently naked, the other wearing a himation with striped fringe, both wearing crested Attic helmets and holding spears and shields, one decorated with foliate blazon, the other with a horse. A Greek inscription above the youth translates, 'The boy is beautiful'.

Another arming scene on the plate shows the central youth wearing a short chiton below the waist with striped fringe, a thick knotted fillet in his fringed hair, bending down and holding a Chalcidian crested helmet in his right hand and in his left hand a shield resting on the ground-line, with hound blazon. Behind him stands a naked warrior wearing an Attic helmet, his body twisting back towards his right holding a spear and a shield with foliate blazon. In front of him stands a naked youth looking down towards his left and holding his sword and scabbard, the baldric over his shoulder, his hair dressed with a fillet. Next to him stands a warrior wearing an Attic helmet shown partially clad in a himation with a striped fringe, holding a spear and a shield with lion blazon. An inscription translates, 'The boy is beautiful'. This fascinating object is 3in. (8.3cm.) high, 121/8in. (31cm.) maximum diameter. including handles, 9in. (24cm.) diam.