Sperior Ancient Greek Vases by helene yubero

Superior Ancient Greek Vases

Content Black-figure Neck-Amphora with Apollo and Artemis

Panel Amphora with Horse Protome and Two Male Heads

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora with Lions and Boars

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora with Dionysus, Satyrs and Maenads

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora with Dionysus and Satyrs Carrying Maenads

Black Figure Neck Amphora

Black Figure Amphora with a Quadriga driven at Full Speed

Red-Figure Kylix with the Departure of Antilochos, and Scenes of Courting

Black Figure Amphora

Black Figure Amphora with Right facing Rider

Black Figure Amphora known as Tyrrhenian

Black Figure Aryballos

Black Figure Cup

Black-Figure Dinos with a Scene of a Boar Hunt

Black Figure Krater

Black Figure Cup representing Duel Scenes

Black Figure Jug with Octopus

Duck Askos decorated in the «Close style»

Black-Figure Oinochoe and Lid

Black Figure Olpe with Animals

Plastic Aryballos Modeled in the Shape of a Head of an African

Head-Vase in the Form of a Monkey’s Head

Oinochoe-shaped Head Vase in the Form of Aphrodite

Corinthian Black-figure column krater

Red-Figure Hydria with Herakles, Athena, and Kyknos

Red Figure Hydria

Volute Krater Depicting the Sack of Troy, the Iliupersis

Red Figure Krater

Red Figure Calyx Krater

Red Figure Bell Krater

Red-Figure Kylix with a Music Teacher and Schoolboy

100

Red Figure Kylix with Youths

104

Red Figure Cup without a Foot

106

Red-Figure Kylix with a Woman Holding a Staff and Bird

108

Red-Figure Lekythos with a Youth Offering a Libation at an Altar

110

Red Figure Lekythos with Two Erotes

112

Red Figure Lekythos with Eos Pursuing Kephalos or Tithonos

114

Red Figure Loutrophoros

116

Red Figure Oinochoe

118

Red Figure Patera with a Biga Driven by Nike

120

Red Figure Patera with Artemis on a Panther

122

Red-Figure Pelike with Deities and Mortals

124

Red Figure Pelike

128

Fish-Plate with an Octopus, Striped Sea Perch, and a Dogfish Shark

130

Red Figure Rhyton in the Shape of a Griffin Head

132

Red Figure Rhyton

134

Terracotta Alabastron

135

Stamnos with Layered Painting

136

Belly-Handled Amphora

140

Amphoriskos in the Form of an Almond

142

Terracotta Aryballos in the Shape of a Human Leg

143

Black Figure Oinochoe with a Siren, Sphinxes, Lions, and Ibexes

144

Corinthian Terracotta Olpe

146

Greek Geometric Terracotta Olpe

148

Terracotta Plemochoe

151

Lidded Pyxis Decorated with a Team of Horses

152

Plastic Vase in the Form of a Phallus

154

Buff-Ware Goblet

155

Aidoion Aryballos

156

Pottery Vase

157

Painted Pottery Oinochoe

158

Amphoriskos in the Form of a Cockle Shell

159

Black Glaze Krater

160

White Ground Upper Portion of a Head-Vase

164

Black-Glaze Amphoriskos

166

An Aryballos in the form of a Hare

167

Black-figure Neck-Amphora with Apollo and Artemis Attributed to the Euphiletos Painter 1 and the Class of Cabinet des Médailles 218 Greek, Attic, ca. 525-510 B.C., signed by the potter Pamphaios Ceramic H: 31.7 cm - max. D: 15.9 cm - D: of the foot 10.5 cm

The body is unbroken; the foot and handles are reattached. The broken rim is repaired with no losses and minimal in-painting of cracks.

cally placed black palmettes that frame the two figure scenes. A band of black and red tongues circles the upper shoulder below the fillet at the base of the neck. Black rays spring from the red fillet separating the foot and body, and above these a broad band of key pattern provides a ground line for the figures. The spreading foot has a reserved edge and a slightly concave upper surface. Black stripes run down the ribs of the handles and around the edge of the lip, the top of which is decorated with two pairs of preening panthers. On either side of the tall, concave neck, a satyr dances in pursuit of a white-skinned nymph, who is dressed in a belted gown decorated with white dots and red and black stripes. The nymph on the reverse also wears a goat skin (nebris).

This striking and well-preserved Athenian black-figure neck-amphora is signed in bold black letters by the potter Pamphaios: !"#!"$%& '()%$(&# (“Pamphaios made me”). 2 The underside of the foot of the amphora is marked with a graffito in the form of an alpha and lambda: AV. 3 There are over sixty vases with the signature of Pamphaios, attributed to a variety of painters. 4 Most are cups, and only a few are on large pots. As many as fifty are red-figure while only a dozen or so are black-figure. Pamphaios seems to have taken over the workshop founded by the potter Nikosthenes, whose own signature appears on even more vases of the preceding generation, most of them black-figure. It is debated whether Nikosthenes and Pamphaios were actual potters or instead were the owners of the workshop, which was known for its openness to innovative techniques and new pottery forms, some of which were clearly designed to appeal to the tastes of customers in Etruria. Among the most distinctive shapes produced in the workshop was the Nikosthenic amphora, named for the frequency with which examples were signed by Nikosthenes. These copied the form of a popular Etruscan bucchero shape, with a tapering body, trumpet-shaped foot, tall neck, and broad, flattened handles, the latter springing from a ribbed frieze running around the shoulder to merge seamlessly with the vessel’s wide flaring rim. In the succeeding generation, “sub-Nikosthenic” amphorae of various types continued to be made, but in fewer numbers. This vase can be assigned to the Class of Cabinet de Médailles 218, which differs from the Nikosthenic amphora in omitting the shoulder frieze and replacing the flat handles with a triple-reeded variety. 5 The ornament beneath the handles resembles that of standard neck-amphorae of the last quarter of the sixth century, with coiling tendrils terminating in symmetri-

The subject is the same on either side: the god Apollo is playing the kithara before a goddess, possibly his mother Leto but more probably his sister Artemis. Apollo is dressed the same on either side, in an ankle-length chiton and a colorful red-andblack striped himation, its hem decorated with incised zigzags. The himation hangs in nearly equal length down his front and back, like a poncho. On the obverse side, where Pamphaios’s signature is written vertically on either side of Apollo, the god wears an incised wreath and his hair is simply drawn. On the reverse, however, the wreath is replaced by a fillet of added red, and the hair over his face and nape is rendered as a mass of carefully incised curls. On the reverse he looks down slightly, while on the obverse his head is raised. In both cases he holds the heavy instrument level by means of a sash around his left wrist, the ends of which dangle to one side. With the fingers of his left hand he touches the strings, while the right hand clutches a plektron, a heavy pick for striking the strings. The arms of the kithara are painted white. On the obverse, Artemis flexes both arms but holds them low, while on the reverse she has raised her right hand as though in

greeting. In both cases she wears a tall polos crown decorated with a red stripe and incised running spirals. Both goddesses wear long chitons, and over these are worn a second garment, which differs in treatment. The Artemis on the reverse wears a peplos, the front of which is tucked under a belt to pull up the hem in zigzag folds, revealing the chiton underneath. The folds of the peplos, in alternating red and black, are the same on both the lower body and on the overfold that extends to her waist. The goddess on the obverse wears a similar garment over her chiton, but the overfold is decorated with a grid of incised squares and circles, while the lower part terminates just below the knees in a straight hem, like an ependytes, another type of garment, quite distinct from a peplos. Both goddesses have long black hair that falls in tresses onto their shoulders, and their flesh is rendered in added white slip, slightly worn in places to reveal the black slip underneath.

PROVENANCE European private collection. 1 2

3 4

The Euphiletos Painter decorated a variety of large vase shapes, including some of the finest Panathenaic prize amphorae. 6 His drawing could be lose and even careless, but at other times, as here, he was fussily precise, laboring particularly over the incision of Apollo’s features, as well as his hair and hands. For these details, the closest parallels are on a pair of hydriai in Paris and London, both also signed by Pamphaios as potter. 7 Apollo and Artemis are again featured on the otherwise unattributed name-vase of the Class of Cabinet des Médailles 218, but that vase has a different foot and flat handles. 8 A closer parallel is an amphora of this Class in Basel, also with Apollo playing the kithara before Artemis, which has triple handles and an identical foot. 9

8 9

Attributed by J. Michael Padgett. Pamphaios – or the artists who decorated his vases – spelled his name a number of ways: Phanphaios (as here), Phaiphaios, Panphaios, Pamaphios. See ABV 127; Immerwahr 1984. For such incised “trademarks,” see Johnston 1979. Among the vase-painters who worked for Pamphaios are the Euphiletos Painter, Oltos, Epiktetos, the Nikosthenes Painter, the Bowdoin Eye-Painter, the Ambrosios Painter, the Aktorione Painter, and the Pythokles Painter. For Pamphaios, see ABV 235-236; Paralipomena 109, 333; ARV2 127-132, 1627; BAdd2, 60, 176; Immerwahr 1984, 139, 163-64, 172; Tosto 1999, 193-195. For the Class of Cabinet des Médailles 218, see ABV 319-320; Paralipomena 139-140; BAdd2, 86; Tosto 1999, 35-37, pls. 49-50. Oltos painted three red-figure amphorae of this Class, two of which are signed by Pamphaios as potter: ABV 320.13-14; ARV2 53.1-2, and 127.1-2. For the Euphiletos Painter, see ABV 321-326, 694; Paralipomena 142-143; BAdd2 87-88; Boardman 1974, 112. Hydriai: Paris, Cab. Méd. 254 and London B 300 (ABV 324.38-39). For the outlined lips of Apollo on the obverse of our amphora, cf. those of Triton on a vase once in the Philadelphia art market (Paralipomena 143.16bis). For the distinctive palmettes with reserved hearts, cf. two vases by the artist formerly in the London art market: ABV 323.16; and Sotheby’s, London, July 11-12, 1983, no. 329. ABV 319.5. Basel, Antikenmuseum L26; Paralipomena 140.4; Berger and Lullies 1979, 72-74, no. 26; Boardman 1974, fig. 214. The Basel amphora is inferior in both potting and painting to this example and is not by the Euphiletos Painter.

Panel Amphora with Horse Protome and Two Male Heads 1

Near the Hippolytos Painter 3 Greek, Corinthian, ca. 560 B.C. Ceramic H: 34.0 cm - D: (of the mouth) 11.8 cm - D: (of the foot) 11.6 cm

Recomposed from large fragments. Some wear of added white on the horse-head protome on the obverse, and on the white fillet of the figure on the reverse.

and neck are in added red. Incised lines indicate details on his face and head, the outline of his hair, and the border of his chiton. The two figures may represent an abbreviated form of the standard scene for the departure of a warrior, which oftentimes involves an older and younger man, as father and son. 6

This Type B amphora has a flaring mouth, rounded handles, and an echinus foot. A double row of black rays encircles the lower body just above the foot, which is black. There are bands of added red at the mouth; a triple band on the neck and top of the foot; a double band below the panel scene, at the top of the panel, the lower part of the belly, and just above the rays. A band of net pattern decorates the upper part of each reserved panel.

At the time of this amphora’s manufacture, Corinth was slowly losing its competition with Athens, which had come to dominate the export of Greek ceramics throughout much of the Mediterranean region. Although a Corinthian product, it imitates an Attic horse-head amphora. This may have been to satisfy customers on the Italian peninsula, and elsewhere, who began to develop a taste for Athenian pottery over Corinthian ceramic production beginning in the early sixth century B.C. The decorative scheme, a large figure set in a panel, is typical of Athenian work, in contrast to the Corinthian preference for vignettes or groupings of several, smaller-scale figures. Additionally, the pale, buff color of the Corinthian clay has been heightened in color with the addition of a reddish wash of ochre, giving it the look of reddish Athenian clay. A number of Attic horse-head amphorae have survived, and most are of a standard form: a panel amphora of Type B shape; a horse’s head in either panel with the head in profile to the right; and a horse’s head wearing a simple halter. 7

On the front of the vase, the forepart (protome) of a horse is depicted in profile within a reserved panel. The horse is drawn in outline and painted in added white. The mane is done in black slip, with fine details of the hair indicated by neatly arranged incised lines. The horse wears a halter, consisting of cheek-straps and a nose-band joined by a ring, parts of which are visible on the lower part of the mane, running across the neck to the mouth, and then extending up along the cheek to just behind the ears. Halters of this type could be slipped on or off by a groom without unfastening the straps and would make it easy to lead the horse around a stable or paddock. A rope by which the horse would have been led or tied would be fastened to the nose-band, under the chin. 4 The horse’s front leg is raised, an unusual aspect not often represented on the more numerous Attic horse-head amphorae; perhaps the horse is meant to be rearing. 5

The Attic type of horse-head amphora may have been first created by the Gorgon Painter, who worked ca. 600 – 580 B.C., 8 or it may have originated just before him. Certainly this form of amphora decoration was developed in a circle of painters at work during that time. 9 Over one-hundred examples of the Athenian type are known, but Corinthian imitations are very rare. Horse-head amphorae have been discovered in both Attic and Etruscan tombs, and therefore may have been exclusively funerary. Others have suggested that they were prize vases, predecessors of Panathenaic amphorae that begin ca. 570-560 B.C.; presumably they would have been awarded for victory in horse or chariot racing. The horse head on this

On the reverse side of the vase, the heads of two men face each other. The man on the left wears a fillet in added red that encircles his head and wraps around his long hair at the nape. The neck-line of his chiton is decorated with two incised bands and added white dots. His face, neck, and chiton are in added red; details of his face, ear, moustache, beard, and hair are indicated with incised lines. The figure on the right, older and balding, wears a fillet in added white, and his forehead, face

Corinthian amphora and its Athenian counterparts, may have been influenced by a type of Protoattic amphora that depicts confronting horse protomes. 10 Horse-protomes may be simple decoration, or a symbol of aristocratic rank and prestige, since owning a horse in antiquity was an expense that could have been incurred only by relatively wealthy individuals. Ultimately, early horse-head amphorae may underlie the significance of later Corinthian and Attic examples, having an origin in the presence of horses and their ritual arrangement in Mycenaean tombs, like those interred in the dromos of the tholos tomb at Marathon. 11

PROVENANCE

8 9 10

Fomerly in the collection of Alphonse Kahn; Borelli Bey . 12

1 2

For the shape, see Schreiber 1999, 82-83. For this amphora, see Payne 1931, 326, no. 1420, formerly in the Borelli Bey collection. It also was listed in Benson 1953, 58, no. 4 under â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gruppe der Weissen Pferde.â&#x20AC;? Amyx 1988, 262, no. 5. M. Padgett points out similarities between this amphora and a horse-protome on the name-vase of the Painter of Taranto 4949, for which see Amyx 1988, 261, no. 1, pl. 114.1 and pl. 114.2 (reverse depicting a cock). For the use of halters, see Anderson 1961, 40-49.

For an Attic example depicting a horse protome with its front leg lifted up, see Moon and Berge 1979, 48-50, no. 29. For a departure scene, see the tondo of the cup by Makron in this catalog, no. 13. For Attic horse-head amphorae, see ABV2 15-17; Picozzi 1971; Moore 1971, 22, A69; Birchall 1972. ABV2 15-16. Boardman 1974, 17-18. Agora P22551, a Middle to Late Protoattic amphora, ca. 650-25 B.C. See Brann 1962, 96, no. 573, pl. 36. For an Attic horse-head amphora with confronting horse-heads, and the Mycenaean horse-burial at Marathon, see Vermeule 1979, 5961, figs. 15, 16. At the sale of the Borelli Bey collection, Hotel Drouot 11-13 June 1913, this amphora was sold as lot 213, pl. XIX.

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora with Lions and Boars

Attributed to the Antimenes Painter 2 Greek, Attic, ca. 530 B.C. Ceramic H: 14.4 cm - D: (of the mouth) 15.0 cm - D: (of the foot) 12.0 cm

The neck-amphora, like amphorae in general, was primarily a container for liquids, such as wine, water, or oil. The surface of this example is mostly coated with black “glaze” (i.e. clay slip), which is unusual. Its shape is typical for the type, having a tapering body, deep shoulder, offset neck, echinus mouth, triple handles, and torus foot. The shoulder zone, top of the lip, the neck, inside of the handles, lower part of the belly, and a band beneath the shoulder zone are reserved. The neck is decorated with a chain of palmettes and elongated lotus blossoms. There is a small fillet where the neck joins the shoulder, and a fillet painted in added red where the body joins the foot. Rays extend upward from the foot. Around the neck is a row of alternating red and black tongues, separated and framed by black glaze lines. Added red and white is used throughout to enliven the scenes of animals. Red is used to highlight the wing of the waterbird, the flanks of the lions and the boar, and for the tongues and manes of the lions. White is also used for the wing of the waterbird, and for the lion’s teeth, the boar’s tusks, and the underbellies of the animals. Incised lines are effectively used for the details of the animals’ faces and anatomy; to indicate the wing feathers of the waterbird; for the bristly hair on the back of the boars; for the long haired manes of the two lions.

sibly as a pupil of the noted early black-figure painter, Lydos. 3 The Antimenes Painter decorated a relatively large number of vases, and he is one of the chief painters of neck-amphorae and hydriae, the leading shapes in black-figure during the last quarter of the sixth century. His compositions are neat and simple, and his figures rarely overlap, demonstrating that late black-figure can effectively and clearly convey simple narrative. As on this amphora, the Antimenes Painter occasionally uses small figural and animal friezes as decoration on the shoulder of these vessels, as well as for the predelle running below the main figural scenes on hydriae, and for the lips of panel amphorae. 4 He almost always prefers animal friezes that have a combination of lions and boars, rarely including waterbirds, deer, or bulls. PROVENANCE Formerly in the collection of Samuel Rogers, London, collected prior to 1856 1

On the front side of the vase, a waterbird with an arched neck is preening its feathers. A lion with lowered head, its tongue hanging out and tail curling between its legs, roars at a boar at the right. The boar lowers its head and its forelegs in a crouching position, as if ready to charge at a second lion that roars and stands his ground at the far right, its head raised and tail curling upwards. On the opposite side of the vase, a centrally placed boar, alert and stiff, stands with straightened forelegs between two lions, both of which seem ready to attack. The lion to the right lifts up his front right leg, as if stopping the boar in its tracks. 3

One of the most prolific of black-figure vase painters, the Antimenes Painter was regarded by Beazley as a “brother” of Psiax, since their styles are so alike in important respects, and pos-

For the shape, see Richter and Milne 1935, 3; Noble 1988, 38; Schreiber 1999, 73-81. Attributed by Aaron J. Paul. The lions and boars on this amphora find close parallels on other works attributed to the Antimenes Painter: (1) Getty 86.AE.61, fragment of a lip from a type A panel amphora, for which see Burow 1989, pl.139c, no. M12; and CVA Getty Museum, Malibu, Fasc. 1 (USA Fasc. 23), 3, pl. 3.1; (2) the predella of a hydria depicting a waterbird, lions, and boars, for which see Burow 1989, 85-86, pl. 58, no. 58; (3) the predelle of additional hydriae: Wurzburg 308, for which see Burow 1989, pl. 92, no. 92, and Toledo 1956.70, for which see Burow 1989, pl. 99, no. 100. For an amphora attributed to the Antimenes Painter with a frieze of animals around the shoulder, see Burow 1989, 32-34, pl. 139, no. M12. For a small class of neck amphorae by the Antimenes Painter decorated on the shoulder, see ABV 276. For the Antimenes Painter and his circle, see ABV 266-91; Paralipomena; BAdd.2 69-76; Boardman 1974, 109-11; Beazley 1986, 73-74; Burow 1989. See note 2.

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora with Dionysus, Satyrs and Maenads 1

Attributed to the Leagros Group 2 Greek, Attic, ca. 520-500 B.C. Ceramic H: 45.0 cm - D: (of the lip) 20.2 cm - D: (of the foot) 14.2 cm

Intact and well preserved. Minor flaking of added white and two chips at the rim.

the kithera he plays. The space surrounding the figures is filled with sprays of leafy grape vines, lending an air of celebration to the scene.

The shape of this amphora is typical for its period, having a tapering body, deep shoulder, offset neck, echinus mouth, triple handles, and a torus foot. The neck is decorated with a simple chain of elongated black palmettes and lotus blossoms, unembellished with incision or added color. There is a small fillet where the neck joins the shoulder, and another where the body joins the foot. The underside of the foot is incised with a graffito. Rays extend upward from the base. A band of upward facing lotus buds with dots in the interstices circles the lower part of the amphora, framed by two black lines. On either side of the shoulder, below the neck, is a row of alternating red and black tongues. Beneath the handles on each side, the vase is decorated with undulating tendrils and volutes with four palmettes and three lotuses.

On the opposite side of the vase, a maenad playing the krotala and wearing a chiton and a wreath of ivy sits sideways upon a large goat. Gracefully curved branches of ivy fill the background. To the maenadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s left and right are two bearded men, naked except for the wreaths of ivy on their heads. Occupying the space normally filled in the Dionysiac entourage by satyrs, their presence is a curiosity, but one that hardly needs explanation in the topsy-turvy world of the wine god. Added red is used to highlight the beard of Dionysus, his wreath, and the beards and tails of the satyrs. Added white is used for the flesh of the maenad and for the arms and lower part of the soundbox of the kithara.

On the front side, Dionysus, the god of wine, sits upon an animal-legged folding stool. Grape vines emerge from his hands, which are folded across his chest. Wearing a chiton, himation, and a wreath of ivy, he turns around to face an ithyphallic satyr who, with springing gait and upturned tail, is strumming on a kithara. At the right, a second satyr, open mouthed, leads this small Dionysiac ensemble with his singing, accompanied by

This amphora belongs to a very large and important group of late black-figure vases, the Leagros Group, named after five hydriae painted with the kalos name of Leagros. It represents a slightly later stage of vase painting than the work of the Antimenes Painter (see nos. 3 and 4), though they overlap in the last quarter of the sixth century. Neck-amphorae of this group are essentially Antimenean in style, but the floral decoration on

the neck is less articulated, and the lotus blossoms more elongated and stick-like. The composition of figure scenes is now more complex, and includes groups that overlap. These groups remain clear because the incised lines of the figures are simple, with moderate details and a restrained use of added white and red. Beazley comments that the Leagros Group was contemporary with the work of red-figure vase painters such as Euphronios, Phintias, Euthymides, and their followers, resembling it in character and likely produced in the same workshops. 3 He adds that while the vases of the Leagros Group are not equal to the best in contemporary red-figure, they do possess a great vigor and power, and constitute the last great group of Attic black-figured vases. 4

2 3 4

PROVENANCE Formerly in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, 5 Malleval collection 1

For the shape, see Richter and Milne 1935, 3; Noble 1988, 38; Schreiber 1999, 73-81.

For this vase, see ABV 374.199. ABV 354. For the Leagros Group, see Beazley 1986, 74-80; Boardman 1974, 110-11. This amphora was first described by the archeologist J. de Witte, for which see Witte 1837, on the occasion of its sale in Paris, 8 May 1837 as one from “a collection of painted vases and antique vases coming from the excavations of Etruria, number 29.” The vase is from the excavations made by Lucien Bonaparte in Vulci in the years 1829 and 1830. At that time all vases had to be classified by category of value, from one to nine, since the Vatican Museums had the right of first refusal for archeological objects discovered within its jurisdiction. This amphora is classed in category four and appears under no. 1551 from the excavation. It is described in the list of vases of Lucien Bonaparte, for which see Bonaparte 1829. A second description of this amphora appears in a manuscript from the Vatican: Cod(ex) Vat(icanus) Lati(nus), 9970, f. 19, for which see Bonocore 1988. This codex gives the general catalog of the excavations established under Lucien Bonaparte: see Bonaparte 1829, no. 1551, described as “a bacchant on a goat with a graffito under the foot.”

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora with Dionysus and Satyrs Carrying Maenads 1

Attributed to the Leagros Group 2 Greek, Attic, ca. 520-500 B.C. Ceramic H: 45.0 cm - D: (of the lip) 21.8 cm - D: (of the foot) 14.3 cm

One handle recomposed from large fragments, otherwise intact and well preserved. The shape and overall decoration of this neck-amphora is typical for the type, with a tapering body, deep shoulder, offset neck, echinus mouth, triple handles, and a torus foot. The neck is decorated with a chain of palmettes and lotus blossoms with incised details. There is a small fillet where the neck joins the shoulder, and another where the body joins the foot. The underside of the foot is incised with a graffito. Rays extend upward from the base. Framed by two black lines, a band of upward facing lotus buds encircles the lower part of the amphora. Around the neck is a row of alternating red and black tongues. Beneath the handles on each side, the vase is decorated with undulating tendrils and volutes with four palmettes and three lotuses.

The maenad plays krotala, a castanet, in her upraised left hand, and places her right arm around the shoulder and neck of the satyr, embracing his head for support. At the right, a second satyr, in a similar pose and in the same ithyphallic condition as the first, holds a maenad by the waist with his left arm to secure her near his shoulder. This maenad shows a bit of resistance, but not too much. Her legs seem to be moving restlessly, as if struggling to get away. Like the first maenad, she holds krotala in her raised left hand, with her right arm akimbo. The space surrounding the figures is filled with sprays of a leafy grape vine and a cluster of grapes, which reinforces the amphoraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dionysiac theme. On the opposite side of the vase, Dionysus appears in the same fashion and pose as his counterpart on the front. In this instance he is accompanied by a goat rather than a panther. At the left a maenad, wearing a chiton and himation and playing krotala, follows in this small Dionysiac procession. She wears a thin necklace or choker halfway up her neck. Another maenad is the lead figure, moving to the right while turning around to face Dionysus and the other maenad. She, too, wears a necklace and a chiton whose collar is decorated with added white dots. A red belt tightens the chiton at her waist, making her more shapely. Her hands are empty but expressive, and she may be dancing. Grape vines and clusters of grapes fill the background.

On the front side of the amphora, Dionysus, the god of wine, holds a kantharos in his upraised left hand and a large grape vine in his right. Wearing a chiton, himation, and a wreath of ivy on his head, he is accompanied by two satyrs, two maenads and a little panther that stands beside his feet like a household pet, engaging the viewer eye to eye. At the left, a lusty satyr, his ithyphallic state painted over (as was sometimes the custom in the 19th century), grasps a maenad with his left hand and hoists her up onto his left shoulder. The fingertips of the satyrsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; left hand are just visible at the waist, on the maenadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s left side.

Added red is used to highlight the beard of Dionysus and for the ivy leaves of his wreath; to decorate the himatia of Dionysus and the maenads with small crosses; for the beards and tails of the satyrs, and for the tail of the panther. Added white is used for the flesh of the maenads; for the bridge of the nose, eyebrows and underbelly of the panther; and to decorate the himatia of Dionysus and the maenads with groups of triple dots.

PROVENANCE Formerly in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, 5 Malleval collection 1

Like the preceding neck-amphora in this catalog (no. 5), this one belongs to a very large and important group of late blackfigure vases, the Leagros Group, named after five hydriae painted with the kalos name of Leagros. Beazley comments that the Leagros Group is contemporary with the work of red-figure vase painters such as Euphronios, Phintias, Euthymides, and their followers, resembling it in character and likely produced in the same workshops. 3 He adds that while the vases of the Leagros Group are not equal to the best in contemporary red-figure, they do possess a great vigor and power. It is the Leagros Group that produced the last great group of Attic black-figured vases. 4

3 4

For the shape, see Richter and Milne 1935, 3; Noble 1988, 38; Schreiber 1999, 73-81. For this vase, see ABV 374.188. ABV 354. For the Leagros Group, see Beazley 1986, 74-80; Boardman 1974, 110-11. This amphora is from the excavations made by Lucien Bonaparte in Vulci from 1829 and 1830, for which see Bonaparte 1829. At that time all vases were classified by category of value, from one to nine, since the Vatican Museums had the right of first refusal for archeological objects discovered within its jurisdiction. This amphora is classed in category three and appears under no. 1769, where it states that it was â&#x20AC;&#x153;Found in Vulci, site of the Cucumella, Rotunda, April 1829.â&#x20AC;?

Black Figure Neck Amphora Attributed to the Antimenes Painter Greek, Attic, late 6th century B.C. Ceramic H: 39 cm

This vase is complete and practically intact. This amphora, an Attic type known as a neck amphora, has a teardrop-shaped body supported by a disc foot. The shoulder is rounded and heavy, the neck is cylindrical but flared and the handles are made up of three joined ribbons of circular section. The profile of the lip reproduces the shape of the cap, or echinus, of a capital: the top is angular and flat.

Beazley calls them “brothers”. The two could also have been “students” of Lydos, one of the great Attic painters from the middle of the 6th century. Unlike a number of his contemporaries, the Antimenes painter never used the red figure technique, which was the great innovation in ceramic arts at the end of the Archaic Period.

For this shape, the decoration is unusual both in its structure and composition. Indeed, unlike the canonical decoration where the body is painted almost completely black, and the painted scenes – repeated on both faces without much variation – are limited to the zone between the handles, the neck of our vase is decorated with a frieze of double palmettes which alternate with elongated, stylized lotuses, while vertical tongues separate the foot from the bottom of the body. Two bands, one black and one reserved, underline the main scene, and numerous details are incised or added in purple or white. The so-called “prophylactic” eyes, which appear frequently on drinking vessels for wine (kylikes, skyphoi), stare at the guest as if the vessel wished to warn its user about the evils of excessive consumption of the beverage contained therein: on this amphora, the large eyes, surrounded by white, almost form a mask, an effect that is completed by the wavy eyebrows and the small, broad, squashed nose. These features recall those of a Dionysiac mask or that of a satyr.

Among the artists from whom a large number of vases survive (about 150), the Antimenes Painter mostly decorated large vessels such as amphorae and hydriai. His scenes are, for the most part, conventional from the point of view of composition, but the range of subjects he depicted is rich, various and easily identifiable (Heracles and his half-brother Dionysos are two of his favorite subjects.) Occasionally, he painted friezes of small figures to decorate the shoulder of an amphora or a frieze at the foot of the principal scene of a hydria, but in these cases, he preferred processions of animals to mythological subjects. This amphora’s attribution to the Antimenes Painter was proposed by J.D. Beazley.

PROVENANCE Ex-collection A. Vogell, Karlsruhe (ca. 1908.); ex-collection of the Kevorkian Foundation, New York; ex-Schloss Collection, New York.

Two painted figures closely connected with the world of wine and the symposion are lightly but very expressively sketched on either side of this face: to the left, Dionysos, the god of wine himself, is represented with his canonical attributes (bearded, dressed in a long chiton and sitting on a stool, he holds a grape vine and a kantharos or rhyton) and, to the right, a satyr, one of his archetypical acolytes, who runs in great strides to the right. The amphora was the Greek transport vase par excellence used for storing and moving foodstuffs, such as wheat, or liquids like wine, oil or water.

PUBLISHED IN Griechische Altertümer aus dem Besitze des Herr A. Vogell, KarlsruheCassel, May 26-30th, 1908, pl. 279, 9. BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Black Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1956, p. 276, n. 9. BEAZLEY J.D., Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 121.

BIBLIOGRAPHY About the Antimenes Painter in general: BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Black Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1956, pp. 266-291. BEAZLEY J.D., Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, pp. 117-124. BOARDMANN J., Athenian Black Figure Vases, A Handbook, London, 1997, pp. 109-111. An amphora by the Antimenes Painter decorated in a similar way: The Painter’s Eye, The Art of Greek Ceramics, Greek Vases from a Swiss Private Collection and other European Collections, Geneva - New York, 2006, n. 3, pp.12-15.

In this case, one can reasonably suppose that this amphora served as a container for wine because of the unique central decoration depicting a Dionysian subject. The Antimenes Painter was one of the most prolific painters of black figure vases from the end of the 6th century B.C.; his style is so close to that of his contemporary, Psiax, that J.D.

Black Figure Amphora with a Quadriga driven at Full Speed by an artist related to the Lysippides Painter Greek, Attic, late 6th century B.C. Ceramic H: 38 cm

The vase is complete, but was reassembled with some restorations. It is decorated in the black-figure technique; the painting is black and partially glossy with white and purple highlights to indicate decorative details such as the female bodies, armor, and horses. Under the foot of the amphora there are engraved marks that may represent three letters.

such â&#x20AC;&#x153;technicalâ&#x20AC;? trials were rather rare and demonstrated perhaps a certain naivety. This amphora has not yet been attributed but is probably the work of an unnamed painter related to Lysippides, whose artistic qualities correspond to other Attic black-figure ceramics of the last decades of the 6th century B.C.. He may be credited with at least three other amphorae (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum; German private collection; in Lucerne art market in 1962) characterized by the presence of very similar quadrigae heading toward the left or the right, and by the same style of drawing.

The two painted scenes are separated by plant motifs of palmettes and lotuses that are located below the handles. On one side of the vase, three Olympian gods speak to one another: Dionysos, the god of wine, his half-sister Athena, the goddess of wisdom, of war and of the city of Athens, and his half-brother Hermes, the messenger god, and protector of merchants and travelers. All three figures are the children of Zeus. The other side of the vase features an animated battle scene depicting a chariot drawn by four horses moving toward the right and a fully armed hoplite falling to the ground in defeat. The quadriga is driven by Athena, who can be identified by her aegis, spear and helmet. She is accompanied by a warrior whose head is only partially visible and who appears to wear the leontea, a feature typically associated with Herakles, a mortal son of Zeus.

PROVENANCE Ex-F. Steffen collection (1919-2003), Fondation Lacoudre, Neuchatel, Switzerland.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ars Antiqua AG, Antike kunstwerke, Auktion IV, Lucerne, December 7, 1962, pp. 31-32, n. 131, pl. 44. Aus der Glanzzeit Athens, Hamburg, 1986, pp. 56-58, n. 19. BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, New York, 1978, pp. 263, 5. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Cambridge 1, London, 1930, pl. 13, 2, p. 20.

Stylistically the scene is also quite interesting because, the chariot is not represented frontally or in profile, but in threequarter view, which in contrary is archaic cannons. At that time,

Red-Figure Kylix with the Departure of Antilochos, and Scenes of Courting 1

Attributed to Makron 2 as painter and inscribed by Hieron 3 as potter Greek, Attic, ca. 490-480 B.C. Ceramic H: 12.5 cm - D: (of the bowl) 34.0 cm - W: (including the handles) 42.0 cm - D: (of the foot) 12.3 cm

Recomposed from fragments, but largely complete with only minor in-painting of cracks. There is a small part restored on side B.

and upper thighs in battle while allowing the wearer ease of movement. The corselet is covered with fine, dotted scales, possibly of bronze, and the shoulder straps are ornamented with multi-pointed stars. A small cloak drapes over his shoulders. To the left of the warrior, an ornate helmet decorated with foliate volutes is set on a small block-shaped seat. The helmet is of Thracian type, with a visor, neck covering, cheek pieces, a type that first appears at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. To the right of the warrior, an elderly man, balding and with a furrowed brow, looks downward as he rests upon a large block-shaped seat. He wears a long chiton and is wrapped in a himation that drapes over his left shoulder and forearm.

Active for nearly two decades, from about 495 to shortly after 480 B.C., Makron was one of the most talented and prolific artists working in the Late Archaic Period. More than 350 vases have been attributed to him, nearly all of them cups. To date his signature appears only once, on a skyphos in Boston. 4 He worked regularly for the potter, Hieron, whose signature appears on more than thirty vases painted by Makron. In most cases where Hieron signs as potter, as on this cup, the inscription *$(+%# ()%$&(# – “Hieron made this,” appears on the handle. 5 On this example the letters are actually inscribed into the black glaze with a pointed instrument; on other cups Hieron’s signature as potter is also done in red or black letters. Most of Makron’s cups depict groups of men, women, and youths in various combinations of Dionysiac, symposium, courtship, or athletic subjects. Mythological scenes are more rarely represented. This monumental kylix is a masterpiece of Makron’s mature period, the decade after 490 B.C. Recent discoveries concerning its iconography confirm it as one of the most important works of Greek vase painting still in private hands.

The scene depicts the departure of a warrior, and a recent discovery of an inscription near the standing figure identifies him as "[#],$-%.[%&] – “Antilochos.” 6 In Greek mythology, Antilochos is the son of Nestor, king of Pylos, and is described several times in the Iliad as youngest among the Achaeans, swift footed, and valiant in the art of fighting. 7 As with many ancient Greek heros, Antilochos was admired for his physical prowess as well as revered for the manner of his death. He is mentioned also in the Odyssey, where Nestor describes him as “my own dear son, strong alike and flawless, Antilochos, preeminent in speed of foot and as a warrior.” 8 The poet Pindar celebrated his memory as “that man of might, Antilochos, who died for his father’s sake, by awaiting the onslaught of Memnon,” recalling that Antilochos came to the aid of his elderly father, whose chariot had become entangled, and Memnon was about to spear him. 9 Nestor cried out for his son, who came to save him, but Antilochos himself was slain by Memnon while his father escaped. Antilochos, said Pindar, “was deemed by those of a younger generation to have proved himself, among men of old, supreme in filial devotion.” 10 It is likely that the elderly man

The scene depicted within the tondo of the cup’s interior is particularly significant. Within a border of continuous meanders is a well balanced arrangement of two bearded male figures: a young warrior standing and leaning upon his spear, and an older, seated man holding a long T-shaped walking stick. The warrior has a fillet around his head and is dressed in the armor of a Greek hoplite. Over a finely pleated short tunic, or chitoniskos, he wears an elaborate, belted cuirass from which hang two rows of protective flaps, ptergyes, which served to shield the groin

on the cup is Antilichos’s father, Nestor, although this figure has a faint painted inscription associated with it, which may be read as -/0%'(1[(&] – “Lykomedes,” a name in ancient literature referring to various individuals, including the son of the Theban king Kreon, a Cretan suitor of Helen, and a king of Skyros. Considering Antilochos’ fame as a paragon of filial devotion, this mislabeling is almost certainly an error on the part of the artist. 11 The figures do not make eye contact, and with their heads lowered they seem deep in thought or overcome with feeling, conveying an aura of sadness at the thought of separation between father and son. For Nestor it is especially tragic, since he has a premonition of the death of Antilochos, and knows that soon their separation will be for eternity. The scene on the interior of the cup, inspired by heroic myth, is a world removed from the activities of the figures on the exterior, which instead are drawn from Athenian daily life. On side A, three pairs of men and women face one another in polite courtship, conveyed by delicate gestures and well-mannered poses. Two of the men are older and bearded; the third is a beardless youth. All three males strike similar poses: leaning on a walking stick held in the left hand, the weight on the left leg, the torso in three quarter view, the head in profile. Their right arms are bent upward and their hands hold red flowers, now largely worn away, which they present to the women. The men are wrapped in himatia of heavy, simple folds, very typical of Makron, and wear leafy wreathes on their heads. At the left, a woman holds a small, foliate branch or flower in added red slip. She has short hair and is elegantly dressed, wearing a fillet around her head, a necklace, and a himation draped like a shawl over both shoulders. Her shapely body is revealed beneath a diaphanous, heavily pleated chiton whose overfold hangs down to the knees. Depictions of shapely women beneath sheer garments is favored by Makron and a hallmark of his style. Over the chiton she wears a short over-mantle, the hem of which is clearly vis-

ible above the waist. She is receptive to the man’s advances, encouraging her suitor by supporting his bent arm with her hand as he leans toward her. The central pair is more restrained in their courtship, both the man and woman standing upright and not physically touching. The woman wears the same attire as the one previous, however the overfold of the chiton hanging down to her knees is marked with diagonal lines of dilute slip, allowing a clearer view of her thighs and genital area. The woman at the far right is more animated than the two previous, engaging the youth before her with outstretched arms. She, too, wears a chiton and himation, as well as earrings, a necklace, and a kekryphalos, or headscarf. The youth seems attracted by her charms, leaning slightly towards her and copying the pose of the first male figure. A pillow with a zig-zag design sits upon a small stool, a diphros, which is depicted to the right of the youth, under the handle. A convention used by Makron on his larger cups, it functions as a convenient space filler while at the same time helping separate the scene from that on the opposite side. In addition to floral ornaments combining palmettes and lotuses, he also employed vases, small boys, crouching satyrs, and small animals, like goats and dogs, to occupy the areas beneath the handles. The figures on side B are generally analogous to those on side A, except that women have been replaced by male youths, who are wrapped loosely in himatia and leaning on their walking sticks. The sticks of the three male couples overlap each other to form crosses, perhaps providing a visual premonition regarding their relationships. The three couples are engaged in a scene typical for homosexual courtship, where an older man or lover, the erastes, vies for the attention and favor of the younger man or beloved, the eromenos. 12 The youth at the far left has gathered the folds of his himation to drape over his walking stick, which supports his left arm. His head is in profile and the sparse, side whiskers of youth are indicated on his cheek in

dilute glaze. His torso, the well-detailed musculature of which is indicated in lines of dilute glaze, faces frontal. His right hand rests on his hip and his left hand is raised up with thumb and index finger together: like the figures on side A, he may have held a flower that now has eroded away. A string bag containing gaming pieces hangs between the youth and the bearded male figure to the right. The latter bends forward from the waist and, leaning heavily on his walking stick, seems smitten with the beautiful youth.

his hand posed as if holding a flower. His head is in profile and his torso, with detailed musculature done in dilute glaze, is in three quarter view. The couple at the far right is in closer physical contact than the two previous ones. A youth, with head and body in profile, leans forward, leaning on the stick in his left hand while raising his right hand near the forehead of the bearded man who courts him. The man holds a walking stick, which he leans heavily on with both hands, a pose similar to that of the other bearded man at the far left.

The central couple is comprised of two youths, the one at left probably the younger. He is wrapped completely in his himation, except where it drapes low across his chest to reveal wellformed pectoral muscles. His right arm is muffled in the cloak, which drapes across his left forearm as it rests on the walking stick. The pose is both alluring and modest, contrasting with that of the older youth opposite, in pursuit as the erastes. This youth, whose left hand is muffled in his himation while leaning on his stick, bends forward from the waist and lifts his right arm,

PROVENANCE Formerly in the collection of J.C.

PUBLISHED IN DORIG J., Art Antique, Collections Privees de Suisse Romands, 1975, 207, illus.

3 4 5

For the shape, see Richter and Milne 1935, XX; Noble 1988, 57; Schreiber 1999, 148-63. For this kylix, see ARV2 471.185; BAdd2 245; Jacques Chamay in Dörig 1975, no. 207; Boardman 1975, fig. 315 (tondo); Sutton 1981, 399, no. G51; Kunisch 1997, no. 342, pl. 115. For Makron see ARV2 458-81; Paralipomena 377-79; BAdd2 243-47; Kunisch 1997. For Hieron see ARV2 458, 481-82; Paralipomena 379; BAdd2 247. : Boston 13.186, ARV2 458.1. For Makron and Hieron see Hartwig 1893; Furtwängler 1909; Leonard 1912; Richter 1917; Beazley 1918, 101-106; Beazley 1921; Richter and Hall 1936, 72-80; Beazley 1954; Richter 1958, 81-83; Shefton 1962, 332-33; Caskey-Beazley 1963, 30-41; Boardman 1975, 140; Nachbauer 1978; Stadler 1981; Bothmer 1982, 2952; Cohen 1982; Simon 1982, 80-83; Nachbauer 1983; Karouzou 1983; Isler-Kerenyi 1984, 164; Kunisch 1984, 19-27; Kunisch 1988; Immerwahr 1990, 89-90; Beazley 1989, 84-97; Robertson

7 8 9 10 11

1992, 100-106; Williams 1993, 46-53; Kunisch 1997. The two inscriptions in the tondo, overlooked in previous publications of this cup, were first noted by J. Robert Guy. They are termed “ghost inscriptions,” since they misfired a matt black in the kiln rather than red, which makes them difficult to see, especially against the black glaze of the background. However ghost inscriptions are clearly readable when illuminated under bright, raking light. Homer, Iliad 15.569-70; 18.2; 23.755-56. Homer, Odyssey 3.111-12. Pindar, Pythian Odes 6.28-42 Pindar, Pythian Odes 6.40-42. Makron is known for his misspellings of contemporary names, as pointed out in Immerwahr 1990, 90. Although it is most likely that the old man here is intended as Nestor, it is possible that instances of interaction between Antilochos and Lykomedes in ancient myth are now lost to us. For homosexual courtship, see Dover 1978, 91-100.

Black Figure Amphora Attributed to the Leagros group Greek, Attic, ca. 510-500 B.C. Ceramic H: 41 cm

The obverse with Medea boiling the ram, centered by a large lebes on a tripod over a fire, the forepart of the ram emerging from the lebes to the right, with Medea seated on a diphros okladias to the right, looking left, wearing a chiton and himation,and Pelias seated on a diphros okladias to the left, looking right, wearing a himation, holding a staff in his left hand, his long hair and beard in added white, vines in the field; the reverse with Dionysos and two satyrs, the god seated in the center on a diphros okladias, facing right, clad in a chiton and himation, a wreath in his hair, holding a kantharos in his left hand, vines with a single cluster of grapes in his right, the satyrs both nude and facing left, that behind the god ithyphallic, his head turned back; lotus bud chain encircling below, red and black tongues above, rays above the foot, palmette lotus chain on the neck, palmettes and lotus buds below the triple-reeded handles, a dipinto (X) on the underside, details in added red.

cauldron with magical herbs, and a young ram emerges. Thus the daughters are convinced and proceed to dismember their father. However, Medea withholds her magical herbs, thereby preventing Pelias’ rejuvination. In Attic black-figure the cauldron is often flanked by the gesticulating daughters of Pelias, as on a neck-amphora, also by the Leagros Group, in the Sackler Museum, Harvard University, no. 4 in Simon, “Peliades” in LIMC. A Leagros Group hydria in the British Museum, has the daughters together with their father (see no. 11 in Simon, “Pelias” in LIMC). A neck-amphora by the Medea Group in the British Museum has Pelias, Medea and two daughters flanking the cauldron (no. 10 in “Pelias,” op. cit.). On a red-figured hydria by the Copenhagen Painter in the British Museum, the cauldron is flanked by Medea and Jason (no. 134 in Reeder, Pandora, Women in Classical Greece).

When Jason returns to Iolkos with the Golden Fleece, he discovers that Pelias had murdered his parents and usurped the throne. Jason appeals to Medea for revenge. The sorceress approaches the daughters of Pelias with a remedy to rejuvenate their agedfather. She chops up an old ram and places it in a

PROVENANCE Summa Galleries, Beverly Hills, mid 1980s., Property from the Allen E. Paulson Living Trust.

Black Figure Amphora with Right facing Rider Greek, Attic, ca. 550 B.C. Ceramic H: 28 cm

Except for a few chips, this rather small amphora is in a very good state of preservation. It is decorated in the black-figure technique, with an almost entirely black body and symmetrical figural scenes which are painted in two metopes. The glaze is glossy in places, with white and purple highlights. The anatomical details are emphasized by incised lines. A graffito (symbol) in the shape of a cross, as well as a red, painted triangular mark are visible under the foot.

harness is rendered in a stylized fashion by incised lines. This type of scene depicting a horse and rider is frequently seen on Attic black-figure ceramics of the 6th century B.C. Its repeated use is a testament to the role played by the horse in the ancient Greek world as a status symbol because it was a costly animal, only available to aristocrats and more delicate and less useful than the ox or the donkey. This amphora has not been attributed to a specific artist but its style can nevertheless be associated with that of the Berlin Painter 1686, who has been credited with a number of amphorae that depict similar subjects.

This type of vessel is known as a belly-amphora and is characterized by a continuous profile which follows an unbroken line from neck to base. The lip is flat and angular and the foot is in the shape of a reversed Doric capital. This work demonstrates high artistic skills as evidenced by the precise drawing and clear contours. With minor exceptions, both scenes depict a young horseman riding bareback on a black horse. Each rider wears a painted white tunic. The thin and elongated forms of the horsemen are in great contrast with the over-life-size forms of the horses. The front hooves of the horses do not touch the ground, indicating the rapid speed of a gallop or of a race. The mane and neck of the animal are overpainted in purple and the

PROVENANCE Ex-A.C. private collection, Belgium, 1960-70s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BOARDMAN, J., Athenian Black Figure Vases, A Handbook, London, pp. 62ff. Gli Etruschi di Cerveteri, Milan, 1980, pp. 198ff., n. 15.

Black Figure Amphora known as Tyrrhenian Attributed to the Castellani Painter Greek (Attic), ca. 570-550 B.C. Ceramic H: 34.7 cm

The vase is virtually intact with the exception of the foot which has been reassembled. The black painting still retains some of its original luster, with added white and purple paint highlighting the features of the animal and female bodies, as well as the armor.

helmet. Their horses raise their forelegs to indicate that they are galloping. Two women on the left and one on the right frame the composition. No iconographic element enables us to link this episode to a precise mythological scene. The amphorae known as Tyrrhenian, are a group of vessels that were produced in Athens during the third quarter of the 6th century B.C. They were essentially made for the central Italian market, where almost all of these vases originate. At a time when Corinth still dominated the ceramics market, Attic potters chose a shape which was rarely used by their rivals in order to get into commercial trades with the Etruscans. The vessels would have been intended to transport oil, or even wine produced in Attica to the Western markets.

This medium-sized amphora has an ovoid and well-proportioned body and is supported by a small rounded and shallow base. The neck is long and cylindrical, with a high, flat lip. Though Attic in origin, the decoration of this amphora is heavily influenced by the Corinthian style prevailing in Greek vase painting of the 7th and early 6th century B.C. The surface is divided into three horizontal friezes, the two lower of which contain simple animal motifs. The uppermost frieze contains two main scenes. On one side, five komasts (dancers often related to Dionysian scenes) perform a dance consisting of jumps and arm gestures. On the other side, two hoplites, armed with spears, breastplates, helmets and shields are engaged in battle. The warriors are flanked by horsemen that are nearly identical in manner and mirror each other. They are armed with swords, and dressed in simple, short chitons and each wears a

These amphorae were manufactured in several workshops and are characterized stylistically by a certain modesty in the choice of subject matter and somewhat hasty workmanship. However, the Castellani Painter, who created this example, is considered the most renowned artistic figure of the entire group because of his carefully drawn animals and the elaborate war scenes.

PROVENANCE Formerly Collection R.M., Canton Berne (1956-1979). With M.M. AG, Basle, 1971.

PUBLISHED IN BEAZLEY J. D., Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 41. CARPENTER T. H., Beazley Addenda, Oxford, 1989, p. 28. KLUIVER J., The Tyrrhenian Group of Black Figure Vases, Amsterdam, 2003, p. 162, n. 174. Kunst der Antike, Soleure, 1967, p. 28, n. 90.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, New York, 1978, pp. 94-106. BOARDMAN J., Athenian Black Figure Vases, A Handbook, London, pp. 36-37. THIERSCH H., Tyrrhenische Amphoren, Berlin, 1899.

Black Figure Aryballos Attributed to the Wieler painter Corinthian, ca. 580 B.C. Ceramic H: 14.6 cm

With low foot-ring and globular body painted in red and black with two confronted roosters flanking a large lotus-and-palmette escutcheon, rosettes in the field, tongues below the neck and on top of the rim, dots on the side of the rim, a zigzag line onthe handle. On the underside of the vase are a circular label inscribed in black ink “824” (underlined), a circular label printed with the name “Alexis Quart” around a heraldic motif, and a scalloped circular label printed “Douane Centrale - Exportation - Paris.”

PROVENANCE American private collection, acquired in Paris in the early 20th Century.

CATALOGUE NOTE For a related example by the Otterlo Painter, to whose workshop the Wieler Painter belonged, cf. J.L. Benson, “A Floral Master of the Chimaera Group,” Antike Kunst, vol. 14, 1971, p. 15, no. 24, pl. 3,2 (San Simeon, Hearst Monument 5649 [SSW 9959]).

Black Figure Cup Attributed to the Tleson Painter Greek, Attic, middle of the 6th century B.C. Ceramic D: (without handles) 20.6 cm

The cup is complete, but it has been reassembled from a number of fragments; the holes at the top of the stem and inside the tondo could indicate that the cup had already been broken and repaired with metal staples during antiquity.

The lower frieze is decorated with two pairs of palmettes and scrolls painted near the handles and mostly with a long inscription (which uses the same words on both sides), perfectly readable despite small errors: the container speaks directly to the drinker, exhorting him to drink without excess: “Be happy and drink well” (&/ ."$+( 0"$ )$($ (/ ,%$).

Decorated in the so called black-figure technique, it features many elements in added purple and / or white paint (especially the skin of the maenad); incisions add anatomical and clothing details. The black paint still retains its original metallic and shiny luster.

As it is often the case for Greek vases, the decor and shape are closely related to each other: in the Hellenic world (mostly in Attic), the cup was the archetypal drinking vessel, used at banquets and parties (symposia) whose main figure was Dionysus, the god of wine; this beverage was essential for the proper conduct of the banquet. The maenads are the followers of Dionysus, the female counterpart of the satyrs, that they accompany in their orgiastic processions, while the donkey (always shown in erection) is the archetypal animal of the god. The sentence “pronounced” by the vessel strengthens the link between these different elements.

This cup is of the type known as a lip cup by archaeologists (coupe à lèvre in French), characterized by the unpainted lip – most often covered with figural scenes – whose base is slightly recessed in the profile view of the vessel (mostly visible in the inner vessel). The decoration, very sober from a structural point of view, hinges on two registers: the lip and the handles area. The main motif is composed only of two figures, each painted in the center of one side: an ithyphallic donkey galloping to the right of the viewer and, on the other side, a maenad who runs in the same direction fleeing from the vague desire of the quadruped. The female figure, dressed in a long, richly woven chiton, holds a vine branch and, in her other hand, two stems whose meaning is enigmatic (a double flute?).

For these technical and artistic qualities, this piece can easily be compared with the best contemporary “Little Masters” cups (coupes des “petits maîtres” in French), as evidenced by the treatment of the maenad’s chiton and of the donkey’s body (even the bridle of the quadruped is decorated with small white dots) The connection between this cup and the works of the Tleson Painter, one of the most important Attic painters of the

mid-century (he signed his cups only as a potter), was proposed by Pieter Heesen. It is justified for several reasons: stylistic and qualitative first, but also thematic (on one hand, Dionysiac scenes and animals are among his favorite subjects; secondly, he was used to write texts on his cups) and formal (he almost only produced cups).

PROVENANCE American Private Collection, New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY On the Tleson Painter, see: BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, New York, 1978, p. 178ff. BEAZLEY J.D., Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 74-75. BOARDMAN J., Athenian Black Figure Vases, A Handbook, London, 1997, pp. 58ff. VIERNEISEL K. et al., Kunst der Schale, Kultur des Trinkens, Munich, 1990, pp. 170-174.

Black-Figure Dinos with a Scene of a Boar Hunt from the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Campanaâ&#x20AC;? Group, attributed to the Ribbon Painter 1 East Greek, or made in Etruria by an East Greek artist, ca. 540-520 B.C. Ceramic H: 19.7 cm

Intact with very well-preserved painted decoration. The burnished clay fabric of the vessel has fired to a glossy, dark orange surface; the slip for decorative bands and figures has fired to a deep black gloss, similar to the fine black gloss of Athenian pottery. A container for mixing wine, the dinos 2 is a large rounded vessel with no foot or handles, and was therefore supported on a stand. The shape of ceramic dinoi is likely derived from sixth century B.C. bronze vessels, such as the inscribed dinos from the sanctuary of Hera on Samos, a type which itself was probably inspired by earlier examples from the Near East. 3 In ancient literature dinoi were recorded as being given as prizes at games, including the funeral games of Patroklos and Pelias. 4 Dinoi became popular among Athenian vase painters at the beginning of the sixth century B.C., two of the most notable examples being the dinos and stand painted by Sophilos in the British Museum, 5 and a similar dinos and stand by the Gorgon Painter in the Louvre. 6 On this dinos an ivy wreathe, the leaves of which have stems highlighted with added white slip, decorates a wide sloping lip that protrudes above the gracefully curving body of the vessel. A thin black band encircles the rim, and the shoulder is decorated in a loop pattern formed by a line looping up and down,

and around two rows of large dots, with smaller dots between the top and bottom of the loops. The groundline for the hunt scene is formed by a thin, carefully drawn line, below which is a band of zigzag leaves, resembling a ribbon, a design that gives the Ribbon Painter his name. Below this a wide band of highly stylized, alternating lotus flowers and ivy leaves, and another band of a ribbon-like, zigzag of leaves encircle the bottom of the dinos. 7 All the decorative bands are bordered by carefully drawn horizontal lines. The vessel’s interior is entirely black except for a reserved area in the center decorated with a dot-in-circle design. A “stacking mark,” made when the dinos was stacked on another object during firing in the kiln, appears as an impressed circle on the exterior, bottom of the vessel. The surface of the vase is burnished to a glossy, dark orange sheen, similar to that of the Ribbon Painter’s most famous work, the Ricci hydria in the Villa Giulia, with which this dinos also shares the loop pattern decoration and the same style of drawing for the depiction of young male figures. 8 On the sides of the dinos five highly animated, running youths are engaged in a boar hunt, a unique scene for dinoi of the Campana Group. The two boars, one on each side, are huge and overly large in scale, almost as tall as the youths themselves – a detail that convincingly argues that this is more than an ordinary hunt. The Ribbon Painter was likely inspired by the

most famous boar hunt known from Greek myth, that of the Calydonian boar, which appears on dinoi, 10 kraters, amphorae, and cups of the period. 11 As related in the myth, which is first referenced in Homer’s Iliad (Book IX, 529-546), King Oeneus of Calydon, neglected to sacrifice the annual first fruits to Artemis and in revenge the goddess sent a great wild boar to ravage the countryside. It was left to Meleager, the son of Oeneus, to assemble hunters and hounds from many cities to kill the boar. Based upon surviving examples of Athenian black-figure vases, the first half of the sixth century B.C. was the greatest period of production for scenes of the Calydonian boar hunt. The adaptation of this imagery by the Ribbon Painter, an East Greek vase painter, demonstrates both his innovation and the sharing of such themes between Greek artists.

lethal spears. One spear has already wounded the boar on the opposite side of the vase – the animal is bleeding from the head or neck, as indicated by a row of dots in added red. The “Campana” Group, to which this dinos belongs, is likely a product of East Greek artists, perhaps working in Etruria. The vases painted by this group, comprised of the Ribbon Painter (formerly known as the Painter of Louvre E 737 and 739), the Eight Painter (formerly the Painter of Louvre E 736), and the newly added Hoof Painter, are mostly dinoi, many of which were in the Campana collection. The Ribbon Painter, to whom approximately fifteen vases have been attributed, produced remarkably fine pots and is the leading painter of the group. This particular dinos, depicting the lively action of a real or mythological boar hunt framed by well-drawn, decorative details, can be considered among his finest vases.

The nude young men are beardless and have close cropped hair indicated with red slip. The shoulders of both boars are painted with red slip, and white slip highlights their undersides. The crest on the backs of both animals possesses the notch or indentation that is typical of East Greek boars. Finely incised, well-placed lines indicate anatomical details on both the youths and boars and indicate the talented, sure hand of the Ribbon Painter. The boar on one side of the vase paws the ground in defiance, getting ready to charge the hunters, who are vulnerable and defenseless were it not for their potentially

PROVENANCE Formerly in an American private collection. 1

For dinoi of the Campana Group, including the Ribbon Painter and this dinos, see: J. M. Hemelrijk, “Four New Campana Dinoi, a New Painter, Old Questions,” Babesch: Bulletin Antike Beschaving 82 (2007): 365-421, figs. 1-82, and for this dinos in particular, 368-

4 5

69, figs. 22-28, with a thorough treatment of the subject and bibliography. On “Campana” dinoi in general: F. Gaultier, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (CVA) Louvre 24, 21-27, pls. 2-13, with a full account and bibliography; R. de Puma, CVA J. Paul Getty Museum 9, 30-31, pls. 498.3, 499-500; M. Cristofani, “La ceramica greco-orientale in Etruria,” Les Céramiques de la Grèce de l’Est et leur diffusion en occident (Paris, 1978), 193-94; R. M. Cook and J. M. Hemelrijk, “A Hydria of the Campana Group in Bonn,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 5 (1963): 107-20; R. M. Cook, “A List of Clazomenean Pottery,” Annual of the British School at Athens 47 (1952): 150-51; F. Villard, “Deux dinoi d’un peintre ionien au Louvre,” Monuments et mémoires. Fondation E. Piot 43 (1949): 33-57; for a comparable dinos, see Hommes et dieux de la Grèce antique (Brussels, 1982), 69, no. 24, loaned in 1994 to the J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. L94. AA.11.19. For the shape of a dinos, sometimes called a lebes: T. Schreiber, Athenian Vase Construction (Malibu, 1999), 98-105, figs. 11.1-21; J. V. Noble, The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery (New York, 1988), 53, figs. 108, and 109, a stamnos (Brussels A 717) by Smikros depicting a dinos and stand in use; G. Richter and M. Milne, Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases (New York, 1935), 9-10, fig. 70. Samos, Vathy Museum B 1759: G. Schmidt, “Heraion von Samos: Eine Brychon-Weihung und ihre Fundlage,” Athenische Mitteilungen 87 (1972): 167-68, pls. 62-66, appendix 4-5. Richter and Milne 1935, 9-10. London, British Museum 1971.11.-1.1, ca. 580-570 B.C.: J. D. Beazley, Parlipomena (Oxford, 1963), 19.16bis; J. Boardman, Athenian

Black-Figure Vases (London, 1974), 18-19, fig. 24. Paris, Louvre E 874, ca. 600-580 B.C.: J. D. Beazley, Attic BlackFigure Vase-Painters (Oxford, 1956), 8.1; Boardman 1974, 17, fig. 11.1-2. For the ornament on this dinos: Hemelrijk 2007, fig. 45A (type 8, for the lotus-ivy design); fig. 45B (“a,” for the ivy wreathe on the lip), fig. 45C (“f,” for the loop pattern on the shoulder). Rome, Villa Giulia Museum, no inventory number. For the Ricci hydria: C. Bérard et al., A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece (Princeton, 1989), 54-55, fig. 74; J. Boardman, Early Greek Vase Painting (London, 1998), 220-21, fig. 488.1-2, and for other examples of “Campana” dinoi: figs. 490-92 (Louvre E 739, Vienna, Würzburg H 5352, Boston 13.205). For Meleager and images of the Calydonian boar hunt: S. Woodford and I Krauskopf, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 6, 414-35. For the closest comparative examples of the Calydonian boar hunt on Attic black-figure dinoi: Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, acc. no. 34.212, Painter of London B 76, CVA Boston Museum of Fine Arts 2, 8, pls. 64.1-4, 65.1; For the fragment of a dinos by Sophilos, Athens, Agora Museum P344, The Athenian Agora, XXIII, pl. 58.610. For boar hunting in antiquity and a listing of pottery depicting the Calydonian boar hunt, or possible images: J. Barringer, The Hunt in Ancient Greece (Baltimore, 2002), 147-173, fig. 80. From the period of red-figure vases, see: F. Kleiner, “The Kalydonian Hunt: A Reconstruction of a Painting from the Circle of Polygnotos,” Antike Kunst 15 (1977): 17, fig. 6.

Black Figure Krater Corinthian, ca. 590 B.C. Ceramic H: 27.9 cm

Each side decorated with a central swan flanked by two peacocks, with a swan under each curving handle, the rim with multiple zigzags. LITERATURE

PROVENANCE

This is an early form of column krater, using wedges to connect the handles to the rim. For a similarly-decorated krater, cf. J. Chamay and J-L. Maier, CĂŠramiques Corinthiennes, Geneva, 1984, pp.44-45.

Ex-Christieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s SK, April 12, 2000, lot 174. Ex-French Private Collection. Tajan auction, Drouot, Paris, 8. 1. 2008, lot 203

Black Figure Cup representing Duel Scenes Greek, Attic, ca. 530-520 B.C. Ceramic H: 11 cm - W: 12.7 cm

The cup is virtually intact, only the surface of one of the sides is partially covered with concretions. On the interior, near the rim, an old preserved label bears the number 284. Decorated in the so called black-figure technique, it shows many elements in added purple and/or white paint (especially for the weapons, the eyes and the palmettes); incisions, drawn somewhat hastily, indicate more details of the warriors anatomy and of their weapons, while the eyes outline was incised with a compass. The black paint is perfectly preserved, but has partially lost its original shiny metallic luster. This type of cup is known as an eye cup by archaeologists (coupe Ă yeux in French); in its most common variant (type A), it is characterized by the continuous profile of the bowl, by the low stem provided with a ring in relief and, concerning the decoration, by the systematic presence of a pair of eyes on both sides, which are a simplified face or mask (Dionysus or Gorgon?). The figural scenes are distributed between the eyes and/or under the handles, while the medallion is most often decorated with a Gorgon mask. The invention of the eye cups is generally attributed to one of the most famous black-figure painters, Exekias. The decoration of this cup shows a good artistic level and, almost identically repeated on both sides: it represents a battle scene between two infantrymen, nude but partially armed like hoplites, since they are protected by a helmet of the Corinthian type and by cnemides (shin guards), and fight with spears which they are individually trying to avoid using their large circular shield. In both cases, the soldier on the right seems to

win over his opponent, whose size is smaller and knees are slightly bent. This fighting technique, already replaced in the Archaic period by the phalanxes that the cities sent into confronting on the battlefields in the 7th-6th century B.C., still reflects the duels between warriors as presented in the Homeric texts. Unfortunately, regarding our image (infantrymen duels are among the most popular scenes in the Attic repertory of ceramic painting, but are rarely depicted on cups of this type), no evidence enable us to identify these four warriors or to determine if the represented scene can be related to a specific mythological episode. The decoration of the cup is completed by two double palmettes painted under the handles, while the medallion or tondo is composed of a simple reserved circle.

PROVENANCE Ex-Louis-Gabriel Bellon collection (181.9-1899), France.

BIBLIOGRAPHY On related cups and battle scenes, see: BEAZLEY J. D., Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, New York, 1978, pp. ff. BOARDMAN J., Athenian Black Figure Vases, A Handbook, London, 1997, pp. 56 ff, pp. 106-107. VIERNEISEL K. et al., Kunst der Schale, Kultur des Trinkens, Munich, 1990, pp. 111-116.

Black Figure Jug with Octopus Greek, possibly Sicilian, late 5th century B.C. Ceramic H: 7.1 cm - D: (of the mouth) 5 cm

Intact, with a hairline crack below the handle at the rim. Both the shape and decoration of this charming little vase are unusual and exact parallels are wanting. 1 Considering its small size and rounded base, it may have been fashioned as a grave good for use in the afterlife. The clay fabric of the vessel is light reddish-brown and the decoration is all executed in black slip. An undulating ivy wreath circles the neck, and there are double bands around the vessel’s shoulder, mouth, and handle. A highly animated octopus, Octopus vulgaris, is the primary decoration, although it is almost hidden from view when the vase sits on its base. The head of the creature is positioned below the handle. Its eight arms, with coiled ends and clearly defined suction cups, spread radially across the rounded bottom as if gripping the surface. The depiction of the animal is harmonious with the vase’s shape, and the octopus seems to cling to the vase as it would to rocks or a pebbly sea bottom. When seen from the side of the jug, the octopus appears to be extending its tentacles out from what, in nature, would be its hide-away in the crevice of one of the rocky outcroppings commonly found along the shores of the Mediterranean. Incised lines delineate details of the head, eyes, and mouth. Added red color distinguishes the eyes and the unusual spiral added at the end of one of its tentacles. The octopus became a favorite subject of ancient Greek artists, who utilized its unusual biological form and symmetrical anatomy as a decorative device, perfectly adaptable to the curving surfaces of jugs such as this. They were popular motifs in the decorative repertory of Minoan and Mycenaean vase-painters, who developed what is known as the Marine Style. In addition, the creature is represented on gold foil relief ornaments from Grave Circle A at Mycenae. 2

“Just as when an octopus is pulled from its lair, closely packed pebbles are held against its suckers, so pieces of skin from his strong hands were scraped off against the rocks; and the great wave covered him.” 3 Descriptive references and accurate depictions of the octopus in literature and art, such as that painted on this vase, suggest that poets and artists must have had a first-hand knowledge about the appearance and behavior of this marine invertebrate. In antiquity, as today, the Mediterranean was a nearly tideless sea, and its gently sloping, rocky and pebbly beaches would have made it possible to observe the animal in shallow water. 4 The octopus was a favorite food of the ancients, the best fishing grounds for it being located off the coasts of Thasos and Caria. It was admired for its sweet taste and was additionally thought to be an aphrodisiac.

PROVENANCE Formerly in the collection of Leo Mildenberg, Zürich. 5 1

3 4

In ancient Greek literature, the octopus makes its first appearance in The Odyssey when Odysseus, shipwrecked and clinging to a rock, is compared to one:

For the decoration, compare Ars Antiqua, Auktion 2 (Lucerne, 1960) no. 142, pl. 59. See Mountjoy 1993, 48-50; Hood 1978, 37-38, ills. 15, 16 for pottery; 197-205, ills. 203, 204 for gold ornaments. Odyssey 5.432-35. Hesiod and Theognis give brief, biologically accurate descriptions of the octopus; for additional references to the octopus in early Greek literature, see Harrington 1997, 81-86. For a study of Octopus vulgaris, and specifically human perceptions of the animal, see Wells 1978, 8-9. For this vase, see R. De Puma in Kozloff 1981, no. 126, 147-48; Mottahedeh 1997, no. 7, 16.

Duck Askos Decorated in the “Close Style” 1400 B.C. Ceramic H: 13.4 cm. - L: 24.5 cm.

This sleekly designed, almost abstract form of a duck or water-bird rests on two broad, flat feet. It is stabilized by the addition of a strut of three rolled sections of clay located at the front of the vessel. The handmade body of the bird swells at the midpoint and curves up to a flat back, which is fitted with a handle attached to a tubular spout with a flaring rim. The pleasing profile of the animal rises vertically at the front and forms a small beaked head; the back part of the body terminates in a flat, distinctive tail of a water-bird. Duck askoi from Greece and the Aegean come from tombs, which attest to their special significance. The suggestion has been made that some species of ducks and water-birds, as migratory animals with seasonal departures and returns and having an intimate connection with water, became symbols of rebirth and fertility, and as such are fitting objects for the dead. Some forms of these vases were made for pouring from a hole at the mouth, which made them ideal vessels to perform a libation of water or wine for the deceased. This rare vase type has a long history, perhaps first being made in Crete during the Early Bronze Age. Duck askoi appeared soon after in the Cyclades and Cyprus, where the type flourished in the Late Bronze Age. A Late Cypriot III B (1100 – 1050 B.C.) duck askos was found in a tomb at Lapithos, and mainland Greece has produced several examples of Late Helladic III C and Protogeometric date. A similar example of a Late Helladic III C duck askos found at Achaia Clauss near Patras, is now in the collection of the Patras Archaeological Museum. Another duck askos of Protogeometric date (950 – 900 B.C.) is in the collection of the Harvard University Art Museum. The “Close Style,” which evolved in the mainland Greek Argolid is clearly influenced by Cretan pottery of the 13th century B.C. The style of painting is distinguished by an overall decoration of the ceramic surface or a selected zone, as in this rare example of a duck askos, which is filled with triangular sections

accentuated by diagonal lines. The shapes decorated in this particular style are few in number. It is usually found on deep bowls, stirrup-jars, and occasionally large jugs.

PROVENANCE Acquired on the Swiss art market in 2004

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For bird vases and LH III C duck askoi in Greece: The Mycenaean World: Five Centuries of Early Greek Culture 1600-1100 BC, exh. cat. National Archaeological Museum (Athens 1988), 112, no. 44, the duck askos from Achaia Clauss (Patras Archaeological Museum no. 261); V. Karageorghis, Nouveaux documents pour l’étude du bronze recent à Chypre (Paris 1965), 224, n. 4; A. Demetriou, “Cypro-Aegean Relations in the Early Iron Age” in SIMA LXXXIII (Göteborg 1989), 47-51; E. Vermeule, “The Mycenaeans in Achaia,” American Journal of Archaeology 64(1960): 1-21, nos. 44-45, pl. 4, figs. 30-31; M. R. Popham and L. H. Sackett, Lefkandi I: The Iron Age: The Settlement, BSA Supplement 11 (Oxford 1979-1980), pl. 254 a, b. On the symbolism of ducks: M. Yon, “Ducks’ Travels,” Acta Cypria: Acts of an International Congress on Cypriote Archaeology Held in Göteborg on 22-24 August 1991 (Göteborg 1992), pt. 2, 394-407. For the duck askos at Harvard (HUAM 1960.262): S. Langdon, From Pasture to Polis: Art in the Age of Homer (Columbia 1993), 180-82, no. 68; H. Bossert, Altsyrien (Tübingen 1951), 14, no. 199; CVA Robinson Collection, Baltimore MD 1, 11, no. 11, pl. 1.11. For the duck askos from Lapithos, Cyprus: M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, the Bible, and Homer (London 1893), 425, pl. 98, 6. Atti del trentaquattresimo Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto 1995), 401, fig. 16.

Black-Figure Oinochoe and Lid Attributed to the Candida Painter Greek, Corinthian, 570-565 B.C. Ceramic H: 17.2 cm

The oinochoe has a broad flat base, domed body, a wide flange on the neck, and a high ribbon-shaped handle. It is unusual that the vessel retains its knobbed lid, which is trefoil shaped and fits neatly over the mouth of the oinochoe. The body of the oinochoe is painted in two registers with rows of striding lions, water-birds, sirens, and goats with rosettes and dots as filling ornament. There is a double band of dots on the shoulder and rays extending upward from the base.

Bijoux, Bronzes, Médailles, March 18th-21st, 1901, no 10) Charles-René de Paul de Saint-Marceaux (1845-1915), Paris by descent to the present owner.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For a closely related broad-bottomed oinochoe by the Candida Painter in Toronto see: D. M. Robinson, et al., A Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology (Toronto 1930), 55, pl. 13, no. 183. On the Candida Painter see: K. Neeft in Corinto e l’Occidente, Atti del trentaquattresimo Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto 1995), 401, fig. 16.

PROVENANCE Alfred Bourguignon, Naples, late 19th century (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Collection d’Antiquités.Sculptures, Vases peints, Terres cuites, Verrerie,

Black Figure Olpe with Animals Proto-Corinthian, 6th century B.C. Ceramic H: 33 cm

The vessel is decorated with four registers of animals, among which are water-birds, lions, lionesses, wild goats or ibexes, boars, and bulls. Their anatomy is highlighted with a decorative use of added red and delicately incised lines. Background filling ornament consists of black dot-rosettes and white dotrosettes on the neck and the rotelles of the handle.

PROVENANCE European private collection.

Plastic Aryballos Modeled in the Shape of a Head of an African Greek, Attic, ca. 500-490 B.C. Ceramic H: 9.6 cm

Except for two repaired fragments on the neck, this aryballos is practically intact. It has a funnel-shaped neck reinforced by two small, reattached handles. With the exception of the reserved base, the surface is painted entirely black; traces of red paint (?) are preserved on the lips and on the hair, and the eyes were probably white. The figure is clearly characterized as an African as illustrated by the black painted skin but also thanks to the realistic modeling that precisely imitates the features of an African, as if the coroplast was an anthropologist who wished to depict an unfamiliar population: the face presents a rather prominent jaw, the lips are full and the nose pug-shaped. The curly hair is represented by circles painted in purple on the skull.

modern languages, the specific part of the African continent is not indicated today nor the precise ethnic group (Ethiopia, Ethiopians). Until the early 5th century, Greek knowledge of Africa and its inhabitants was very cursory: in Athenian ceramic painting, which is our most important iconographic source for this period, images of Africans are limited to the “pure” types with strongly marked physical traits but without any other allusions to caricatures or mockeries, such as on this aryballos.

At the end of the 6th century B.C., many ateliers of Attic potters made vessels in the shape of heads of Africans (single or janiform) that J. D. Beazley discusses comprehensively in a famous article. This aryballos was modeled in a more realistic fashion than its parallels, especially the rendering of the bone structure of the head (brows, apples of the cheeks, contours of the jaw, chin) ; the position of the head, bent slightly forward, allows for the simultaneous realistic rendering of the neck, which is not just a simple cylinder, but faithfully reproduces the Adam’s apple and the musculature.

EXHIBITED IN

PROVENANCE Ex-American Private Collection.

J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1984-1996.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BEAZLEY J.D., Chairos, Attic Vases in the Form of Human Head, in The Journal of Hellenic Studies 49, 1929, pp. 76-78. HEILMAYER W.-D. (ed.), Antikenmuseum Berlin, Die ausgestellten Werke, Berlin, 1988, pp. 158-159, n. 11-12. SNOWDEN F.M., Blacks in Antiquity; Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience, Cambridge (Mass.), 1970, pp. 24, 40, fig. 9. SNOWDEN Jr. F. M., Iconographical Evidence on the Black Populations in Greco-Roman Antiquity in VERCOUTTER J., The Image of the Black in Western Art, Vol. 1: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire, Cambridge (Massachusetts) - London, 1991, fig. 153-154, 159-160, 193, 194.

The term used in contemporary Greek texts to refer to the inhabitants of Africa is “Aithiops” ("$2$%3, to which ancient and modern lexicographers assign the meaning “of burnt face”; the same word, Aethiops, was unfashionable in latin). In many

Head-Vase in the Form of a Monkey’s Head South Italian, Apulian, 4th century B.C. Ceramic H: 15.3 cm

An expressive monkey with a tight-lipped and pursed mouth, alert staring eyes, and with a wild fringe of hair surrounding the face, is the perfect subject for this unusual and striking head-vase. The musculature of the monkey’s face, which is wellmodeled in clay, is further emphasized and accentuated by the judicious use of black painted lines on the mouth, eyes (complete with “crows feet” wrinkles at the edges), and the hair framing the face. The upper part of the vase is more traditional in its decoration: an egg and dot pattern decorates the exterior of the vessel’s rim, and the face of a woman, her head adorned with a white-painted wreath, is painted in the center of the vase’s neck

and just above the face of the monkey. The back of the vase is painted black and enclosed palmettes and a flower flank the handles. A rare example of the relationship between the pottery of South Italy and that of mainland Greece, the monkey is derived from an earlier 5th century B.C. Attic type. For an example in Ruvo, see F. di Palo, Dalla Ruvo antica al Museo Archeologico Jatta (Fasano 1987), 198, inv. 1517.

PROVENANCE Robin Symes Limited.

Oinochoe-shaped Head Vase in the Form of Aphrodite Greek, Attic, ca. 450 B.C. Ceramic H: 23.5 cm

Restored from fragments with minor chips filled and inpainted. The vase was carefully conserved and cleaned. The areas of white and black slip still retain their original, ancient luster; the red-figure painting is well-preserved.

figure’s head, a flying Nike – the personification of victory – is dressed in a long chiton and wears a sakkos head covering, and held a (now fugitive) ribbon or wreath in her hands. The intent of both of these charming figures is to crown the female figure, a magnificent representation of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Both Nike and Eros are often closely associated with this goddess, and the scene including them can be interpreted as Aphrodite being crowned by Nike and Eros, proclaiming her as victorious in love.

At the end of the Archaic period and throughout the Classical period, Greek potters produced a number of fascinating sculptural or “plastic” vases that took the shape of female heads, or the heads of exotic appearing foreigners, such as African male figures. Mythological beings such as satyrs, the god Herakles, and the goddess Aphrodite were also represented. The shapes of these vases, usually in the form of oinochoai (wine pitchers) and sometimes kantharoi (wine cups with high vertical handles), were associated with wine drinking and the symposium. Organized in the lists of the scholar of Greek vase-painting, J. D. Beazley, this oinochoe is classified as his Type 1. As was standard for the production of these vases, the top part of the vessel was wheel made, and takes the usual form of a trefoil oinochoe, having a high, curving handle, and a mouth pinched into a trefoil shape. The mold-made head of the figure functioned as the body and foot of the oinochoe. The back of the figure’s head is ornamented with a symmetrical design of delicately drawn volutes and palmettes, forming a striking contrast against the deep black, mirror glaze of the vessel. Both the vase shape and facial characteristics of this exquisite vase are related to earlier head oinochoai made by the potter Charinos, who flourished during the first quarter of the 5th century B.C.

Additional evidence for the identification of the female figure as Aphrodite lies in the wreath decoration around on what would function as the shoulder of the oinochoe if it were of the usual oinochoe shape, but being a head vase, the wreath forms a crowning element for the figure of Aphrodite. The decorative wreath can be identified as one made of myrtle (Myrtus communis), the shape and paired placement of leaves along the length of the branch identify it as such. Myrtle is the sacred plant of Aphrodite and is closely associated with her in ancient Greek religion, literature, and vase painting. In antiquity myrtle was one of the best-known evergreens, often being used to decorate sanctuaries and temples. In his work, Enquiry into Plants, the writer Theophrastos mentions it as a source of perfume, and in his narrative about the symposium, the Deipnosophists, Athenaios makes participants in the banquet wear crowns of myrtle to combat drunkenness. Comparative depictions of myrtle on 5th century B.C. Greek vases make its intended message explicit, as it functions both as a symbol possessing underlying cultic significance and as a decorative vase ornament. In antiquity, the connection of myrtle with representations of cult and myth was well known, as was the significance of myrtle with respect to Aphrodite. Sacred to Aphrodite, the goddess hid her naked beauty behind myrtle after her birth at Paphos in Cyprus. With its evergreen leaves, white flowers, and pleasant scent, myrtle symbolizes beauty and youth, and as such is a fitting crown to adorn this rare and beautiful representation of the goddess.

While this beautiful female figure wears earrings, which is unusual for the vase type, and the oinochoe is in an extremely good state of preservation, it is the fascinating iconography that sets it apart and distinguishes it from other head vases. On the left side of the figure’s head a finely drawn, nude Eros – the personification of love – gracefully flies through the air while holding what was a ribbon or wreath painted in added red or white color, but now fugitive. Correspondingly, on the right side of the

Providence, Rhode Island School of Design Museum 1, pl. 26.1A-B Oxford, Ashmolean Museum 1, pls. 20.9, 44.1-2 Vibo Vilentia, Museo Statale Vito Capialbi 1, pl. 41.1-4. CROISSANT F., Collection P. Canellopoulos: Vases plastiques, in Bulletin de correspondence hellénique 97, 1973, pp. 205-225. TRUMPF-LYRIZAKI M., Griechische Figurenvasen des Reichen Stils und der späten Klassik, Bonn, 1969, pp. 60-65, pls. 23-25. On the myrtle as the sacred plant of Aphrodite, see: DETIENNE M., The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology, Princeton, 1994, pp. 62-63. Ancient Herbs in the J. Paul Getty Museum Gardens, Malibu, 1982, pp. 60-62. KUNZE-GÖTTE E., Myrte, Kilchberg, 2006, pp. 53-54. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), vol. II, Zurich, 1984, s.v. Aphrodite, pp. 2-151; p. 109, no. 1080, pl. 109. OTTO W. F., The Homeric Gods, Boston, 1955, pp. 91-103. REEDER E., Pandora: Women in Classical Greece, Princeton, 1995, pp. 212-15, nos. 47-48.

PROVENANCE

Ex-M. Pittard-Mottu Collection, Switzerland, end of 19th century – beginning of the 20th century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

On plastic head vases, see: BEAZLEY J. D., Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Oxford, 1963, pp. 15291552. BEAZLEY J. D., Charinos: Attic Vases in the Form of Human Heads, in Journal of Hellenic Studies 49, 1929, pp. 38-78. BUSCHOR E., Das Krokodil des Sotades, in Münchener Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 11, 1919, p. 12. On the iconography of Aphrodite, Nike and Eros, see: FRIEDRICH P., The Meaning of Aphrodite, Chicago, 1978. GANTZ T., Early Greek Myth, Baltimore, 1996, pp. 99-105. BURKERT W., Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 152-56. For other plastic head vases, see: Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: London, British Museum 4, pls. 44.5A-C

Corinthian Black-figure column krater 550 B.C. H: 29.8 cm.

This grand krater, which is in an optimal state of preservation, is decorated in the black figure technique: the animals and people are painted in black on a light ground, while many details are highlighted in purple, enriching the polychromy of the vase. Already in Antiquity Corinth was known as the place of origin for this type of vase, which, like the other types of kraters (bell, kalyx and volute) was used to mix the water and wine that men consumed at banquets: the krater was, therefore, part of the canon of Greek drinking vessels, and its development was directly related to the world of the symposium â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the krater was even the pivotal piece at the banquet, physically placed in the center amongst the guests â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and the world of wine that developed in Greece at the end of the 8th century B.C. In the Corinthian repertory, dominated by small perfume and drinking vessels, the column krater is the single large form that enjoyed a certain amount of success, especially during the fi rst half of the 6th century B.C.

different graphic strategies: the body of the lion is cut in two by the base of a small column in the frieze above; a panther has a very elongated body below, etc. The style of the drawing, sure and without hesitation, continues in the grand tradition of the Corinthian painters: much more than mythological scenes, processions of animals are one of the classic subjects of Corinthian painting. Their style was of great importance throughout the continental Greek world (for example, contemporary Attic ceramics were largely infl uenced by the animal friezes of Corinth) and the colonial. Well known for a number of years, this krater has nevertheless never been attributed to a precise artist: the style of the figures nevertheless possess many similarities with the painters of the Gorgoneion group, whose classifi cation proposed by H. Payne was also repeated by A.D. Amyx.

The body is globular with a small base with inclined walls and a low neck; the large, fl at lip presents two symmetrical square plaquettes under which are attached two semi-circular handles. PROVENANCE

The decoration of this example is organized into two large friezes of uninterrupted fi gures, one painted at the level of the handles, the other painted below: the upper register is dominated on one side two young horsemen sitting on their mounts and by two monsters (a sphinx and a siren) on the other side, while the space near the handles is occupied by wild cats (panthers, standing or crouching lions). Below, grazing ibexes alternate with four standing panthers. Two panthers seated on their haunches are represented on the plaquettes at the lip. As is often the case on contemporary Corinthian ceramics to help fi x a rather irregular spatial organization, the artist utilized

Sothebyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s London, 13-14 July 1987, n. 448; Ex-American private collection.

PUBLISHED IN AMYX A.D., Corinthian Vase-Painting of the Archaic Period, Berkeley, 1988, vol. II, pp. 194-205 (and the update in NEFT C.W., Addenda et Corrigenda to P.A. Amyx, Corinthian Vase-Painting of the Archaic Period, Amsterdam, 1991). PAYNE H., Necrocorinthia, Oxford, 1931, p. 311. For the typology and decorative syntax: Meisterwerke griechischer Keramik aus der Sammlung G. Sinopoli, Mayence/Rhin, 2000, pp. 24-26, n. 17.

Red-Figure Hydria with Herakles, Athena, and Kyknos 1

Attributed to the Dikaios Painter 2 Greek, Attic, ca. 500 B.C. Ceramic H: 52.0 cm - D: (of the lip) 27.4 cm - D: (of the foot) 13.0 cm

Recomposed from large fragments with in-painting of cracks. The preserved surfaces are in excellent condition. The proper left handle, neck, mouth, vertical handle, and a small triangular section of the right side of the figure zone are restored.

end of the sixth century, including those contemporary with the Dikaios Painter, who also worked in black-figure. 4 The shield of Herakles, which is described in this literary work, is discussed in the context of the confrontation between Kyknos and Herakles. The fight takes place in the sacred enclosure of Apollo at Pagasae, in Thessaly, where Herakles faced off with Kyknos, a thief and brigand who waylaid cattle being driven to Delphi to be sacrificed to Apollo. 5

A hydria was primarily used for carrying water, although its use as a cinerary urn, or even a container for ballots has been recorded. This example, although decorated in red-figure, is of the so-called black-figure type, most popular from about 540 to 480 B.C. It is a large, full bodied vessel, with a deep, sharply offset shoulder – almost flat – a high neck, a wide overhanging lip, and three handles: two horizontal ones at the sides and a single, larger, vertical handle in back, extending from the shoulder to the lip. The two horizontal handles were used to lift the hydria and the vertical handle was held while pouring. The principal scene was on the front of the body, but the flat shoulder offered a second field for figural decoration and is never left blank.

For the battle on this hydria, Herakles is almost nude, but is equipped with the basic accoutrements of a hoplite: spear, shield, and sheathed sword. Instead of a helmet, he retains his lion skin cap for protection, the skin tied in a knot under his chin and hanging down behind. Holding up his spear in his bent right arm, Herakles takes aim at his opponent. His encounter with Kyknos constitutes Herakles’ only combat as a hoplite, one where he is pitted against a fully armed adversary. The hero’s anatomy is finely detailed with dilute glaze, indicating the muscles of his buttock, the iliac crest of his hip, his abdominal muscles, biceps, and his pubic hair. His name, *(+"0-(&, is written vertically to the left, and the word, 0"-%& – “beautiful,” is placed vertically between his legs.

The two figure panels are framed by ornamental bands. On the front, the figures stand on a band of black palmettes linked by tendrils and pointing alternately up and down. Palmette chains of this type appear on many Late Archaic black-figure and redfigure vases and always are drawn in black silhouette, never in red-figure. The lateral frames consist of pairs of red-figure palmettes linked and enclosed by tendrils. An upper band of simple key pattern provides the ground line for the figures on the shoulder. Black tongues are painted around the handle roots and above the shoulder panel at the neck. Rays at the base extend upward from the foot.

Athena wears a long chiton over which drapes a voluminous mantle falling in zig-zag folds. She stands between the two adversaries, and raises her left hand toward Kyknos while turning around to look back at Herakles. Over her shoulders and chest she wears her aegis covered with a scale pattern and edged with writhing snakes. The aegis hangs some distance down her back, since coiled snakes can be seen along her left and right sides. She wears a high-crested helmet of Attic type, and holds a spear diagonally in her right hand. An inscription – "2(#"[$]" – Athena, extends in an arc over her left hand.

The panel on the front of the hydria features a dramatic battle between Herakles and Kyknos, the son of Ares. The action takes place in the presence of Athena and another female figure, Aphrodite, or perhaps Pelopia, who is the mother of Kyknos. 3 The myth is told in the short epic called The Shield of Herakles, traditionally attributed to Hesiod. It is a subject popular among black-figure vase painters from about 560 B.C. to the

Kyknos wears a chitoniskos and a full panoply of hoplite armor, including a crested Corinthian helmet pushed up on his head, protective greaves covering his lower legs, and a sheathed sword hanging at his left side. He supports a shield on his left arm and

holds a spear in his raised right hand. The shield is decorated with a blazon in the form of a highly animated crab, standing upright on its legs while holding an ivy branch between its front claws. He is identified by an inscription, 0/0#%&, extending diagonally above and below his right knee. Dilute glaze is used to delineate the musculature of his neck and the bicep of his right arm.

inscription as Aphrodite. She shares some similarities of dress and pose with the standing woman on this hydria, who also may be Aphrodite. On the shoulder three episodes from the Labors of Herakles are depicted together: the capture of the boar ravaging the countryside around Mount Erymanthos, in Arcadia; the strangling of the lion that terrorized the region around Nemea, in the Argolid; and the capture of the savage Cretan bull. In all three vignettes, Herakles is represented as youthful, beardless and naked. At the left, his club has been set aside and his cloak is neatly draped above it, like a swag. Herakles bends over and tackles the boar around its mid-section. Like an unwilling victim, the Erymanthian boar lifts its head upward, rolling back its eye in objection to this restraint. The inscription naming it extends from the belly of the boar to its snout. In the center of the scene, Herakles kneels forward, almost in a horizontal position, and holds the Nemean lion securely in a headlock. The lion, far from breathing its last, retaliates by clawing the hero’s head with its raised hind leg. A small tree, on which hang Herakles’ cloak, sword, and quiver, fills the space above the wrestling match. The word 0"-%& – beautiful – is painted between this scene and the next. At the right, Herakles grabs the bull by one of its horns, and prevents any option of the bull running away by securing the right front leg and bending it

A female figure, at the far right is dressed in a finely woven chiton, indicated by dilute glaze lines, beneath a voluminous mantle that hangs down from her right shoulder in a neat pattern of zig-zag folds. She wears an elegant diadem over which her long hair is pulled up at the back of her head, an arrangment called a krobylos. The woman gestures with her uplifted right hand, suggesting her agitated state, an appropriate behavior for one concerned about the safety of Kyknos, and may denote her as his mother, Pelopia. The primary scene on the Dikaios Painter’s hydria can be compared with the composition on a calyx-krater by Euphronios, which depicts a fallen Kyknos with sword drawn, but already wounded by Herakles’ spearhead. 6 In that instance, Athena takes a more active role, coming to the aid of Herakles with her spear raised against Ares, who arrives, too late, to protect his son. Standing behind Ares, a female figure is identified by an

back with his right hand. The bull, with a closed eye, appears to surrender. The club of Herakles is placed diagonally nearby, and the name *(+"0-(& extends from the left leg of Herakles and beneath the club to the area in front of the bull. The painting on the shoulder demonstrates the Dikaios Painter’s ability to represent the human figure in a variety of poses, even in the early development of red-figure vase painting. Dilute slip is used to depict abdominal muscles and wisps of cheek hair for the central figure of Herakles, and also as a subtle indication for the hair of the bull. Added red is used for the wreath and the fillets worn by Herakles, for the baldric of the sheathed sword, and for the leaves of the tree. In red-figure the Dikaios Painter decorated several amphorae, a krater, a psykter, and a hydria, taking his name from a kalos inscription on the amphora in the Louvre. 7 Beazley described the Dikaios Painter as the “companion and imitator of Euthymides,”one of the greatest of the early red-figure vase painters. That influence is certainly felt in the painting and composition on this extraordinary hydria, which ranks among his finest works.

4 5

For the shape, see Richter and Milne 1935, 11-12; Noble 1988, 47-48; Schreiber 1999, 116-123. Attributed by J. Robert Guy. A fragment, Louvre CP11090 (ARV2 35.18) from the right side of the figure panel was seen to join this hydria by D. von Bothmer; it gives the left arm and part of the mantle of the female figure, as well as part of the palmette border: see Robertson 1981, 34, n. 6. For the Dikaios Painter, see ARV2 30-32; Paralipomena 174, 324, 509; BAdd2 157; Boardman 1974, 35, figs. 45-47; Robertson 1992, 26,76. A similar hydria, assigned by Beazley to his list of Sundry Pioneers (ARV2 34.9) and now in the Princeton University Art Museum (inv. y1986-61), also has been attributed to the Dikaios Painter by Guy. For the myth of Herakles and Kyknos, see LIMC VII 1, 978 (this hydria, no. 116); Vian 1945, Schefold 1992, 146-49; Gantz 1993, 421-23. For the black-figure work of the Dikaios Painter, see ABV 400. The name Kyknos means “swan” (cygnet), ironically a bird sacred to Apollo. For the krater by Euphronios depicting Herakles and Kyknos in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, see Robertson 1981; Bothmer et al. 1983, 58-61; Robertson 1992, 24-25, fig. 19. Louvre G 45, ARV2 31.4

Red Figure Hydria Attributed to the Varrese Painter Italiote, middle of the 4th century B.C. Ceramic H: 69.5 cm

This hydria, remarkable for its size and highly refined decoration, is whole but has been reassembled from a number of fragments: as usual in these Western regions, it has no bottom because it was only used for a funerary purpose. The red figure decoration is richly embellished with details in added white (clothes, vegetation, subsidiary decorations, etc.) and golden yellow (bronze or gold objects, decorations, etc.), which are well preserved.

His style, very distinctive and easily recognizable, mainly offers scenes composed of many figures, often with solemn and severe features; his draperies are regular and furrowed with groups of parallel folds (mostly visible on the legs), while small concave pleats adorn the chest of the women. Among his figures, some repeatedly appear in his works, without any changes: such is the case on this hydria, with the type of the woman standing upright, dressed in a long chiton, slightly stepping backward on one leg whose outline is visible under the fabric (upper register, second woman from the left), and of the woman looking forward, her leg raised on a boulder, an arm on her knee (upper frieze, last woman on the right).

Two friezes, on the shoulder and the belly, adorn the front face of the vessel while, on the opposite face, a large vegetal pattern, rigorously structured, features superimposed palmettes and volutes. The scene on the shoulder is centered on a youthful male figure, seated on a boulder and crowned by Eros; a zither is placed at his feet (is it Apollo?). Six women, seated or standing upright, surround him, depicted in very different attitudes: some carry containers, a fan or instruments (xylophone), others converse. The lower frieze, separated by an Xshape pattern with volutes painted by the handles, only shows female figures at their toilet, assisted by their servants: two of them watch themselves in a mirror, one opens a box, another one holds a leafy branch and a patera. Objects are painted on the black background of the scene: a basket in the foreground, garlands, paterae, crowns.

PROVENANCE British private collection.

PUBLISHED IN TRENDALL A.D. - CAMBITOGLOU A., Second Supplement to The Redfigured Vases of Apulia, Part I, London, 1991 88, n. 30, c, pl. XV, 4. TRENDALL A.D., Red-Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London, 1989, fig. 172.

Known for a long time, this piece has been attributed to the Varrese Painter (named after a tomb in Canosa, where many works of this artist were buried) by A.D. Trendall. He is one of the most important figures in Apulian vase painting from the midfourth century B.C., whose influence has spread to workshops as famous as that of Darius Painterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY On this painter, see: TRENDALL A.D. - CAMBITOGLOU A., The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Vol. 1, Early and Middle Apulian, Oxford, 1978, pp. 335-352. TRENDALL A.D., Red-Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London, 1989, pp. 83-84.

Volute Krater Depicting the Sack of Troy, the Iliupersis Attributed to the Darius Painter South Italian, Apulian, ca. 340-330 B.C. Ceramic H: 104 cm

The Iliupersis, one of the lost works of ancient Greek literature, belonged to the Epic Cycle that told the history of the Trojan war in verse. Only fragments have come down to us, but related epics and later references, such as the second book of Virgil’s Aeneid, provide us with an impression of the poem’s content. The paucity of written sources make scenes from the Iliupersis in the visual arts – like those depicted on this volute krater by the Darius Painter – all the more rare and significant.

dery. At the right, the old priestess Theano, holding a temple key in her left hand, is pleading with her right arm extended as she implores Ajax not to harm Kassandra, and commit a sacrilege by raping her within the sanctuary. Ajax is nude except for his crested helmet, sword, shield, and the drapery of his garment that flows down from his left arm. Kassandra kneels before the statue of Athena, which she grasps in desperation with the sword of Ajax positioned just above her head.

Exquisitely painted on the front side of this vase, the participants in the tragic sack of Troy are identified by name, all inscribed in neatly painted letters. The scene of action is set by the large, rectangular altar of Zeus Herkeios, prominently located in the center of the upper register. The altar is painted white, indicating that it was constructed of white marble or stone. It is surrounded by other monuments appropriate for a sanctuary: the skulls of sacrificial bulls, bucrania, hang near the altar; at the left, a Doric column is surmounted by a tripod; at the right, a statue of the goddess Athena stands upon a small altar. The tripod on the column, branches of laurel in the landscape, as well as the dislodged tripod depicted in the center and at the bottom of the figural scene, allude to the presence of the god Apollo.

In the center of the lower register Helen kneels upon a pedestal and embraces a column supporting a statue of Apollo, of which only the legs remain attached. The upper part of the statue, which depicts the god holding a bow, is shown lying on the ground to the right of the monument. The presence of the statue indicates that the reunion of Menelaos and Helen takes place at the shrine of Apollo. In this scene the goddess of love, Aphrodite, appears to observe passively at the right as her young son, Eros, intercedes and stays the hand of Menelaos that holds a sword, as he intends to slay Helen who seeks refuge at the column’s base. In keeping with the myth that Menelaos is moved by Helen’s beauty, and being duly influenced by Aphrodite and Eros, Menelaos drops his sword and the life of Helen is spared. Appropriately, she is adorned with a necklace, earrings, and bracelets, and her himation (mantle) has dropped down to her waist, thus exposing her breasts seductively revealed beneath a diaphanous chiton. Menelaos wears only a chlamys and a baldric across his chest. Aphrodite wears ornately decorated shoes and a long chiton (robe) decorated down the front. She is also adorned with a necklace, earrings, and bracelets, and is well-coiffed, with hair drawn up to the top of her head by a kekryphalos, a cloth for binding up hair that leaves it projecting from the back in a ponytail fashion. Eros wears white shoes, bracelets, and anklets.

Having fallen upon his shield in front of the altar of Zeus, the Trojan Deiphobus lies mortally wounded by Menelaos. At the left, a terrified guard or member of the royal household is richly dressed in eastern attire and looks on as the suppliant king of Troy, Priam, begs for his life. The king, dislodged from the altar of Zeus, is about to be dispatched to the afterlife at the hands of Neoptolemos who holds a sword to the king’s neck. Neoptolemos is nude except for a chlamys (cloak) and his pointed helmet with cheek pieces raised up along the sides of the helmet. A shield leans backward near his right leg. Priam holds a long decorated staff or scepter and wears a red Phrygian style cap and ornate boots. He is regally dressed in a white longsleeved tunic over which is worn a long flowing outer garment, the decoration of which indicates it is embellished with embroi-

On the left side of the lower register the old queen Hecuba kneels near the naked body of a slain Trojan, her right hand raised up and her left hand held to her face in a gesture of great lamentation. Below, the Greek woman, Aithra, sits on the ground

and welcomes her grandson, Akamai, as her liberator. Nearby is a branch of laurel, a bucranium, and a small altar, or perhaps a pedestal for the dislodged tripod that lies at the right. To the right of the central group of figures, Odysseus approaches Polyxena, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba. She sits despondently on a bundle, seemingly resigned to her fate, which is to be sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles by Neoptolemos to appease the ghost of Achilles, and thus raise the winds that will take the Greek ships home. A white-painted hydria, or water jug, is depicted just above and to the left of her head. Polyxena wears ornate shoes, a necklace, and bracelet, but is otherwise simply dressed in a chiton and wrapped in a himation. Odysseus holds a long spear and is richly attired with an ornately crested helmet, bandoliers on his chest, and a protective cuirass covering his abdomen. He wears highly decorated boots and chiton, and a mantle across his shoulders. Beneath this pair, a slain or mortally wounded Trojan lies nude with his arms and legs sprawled out from his body; nearby is a white pilos hat, a phiale, and an overturned vessel.

holds a staff in his left hand and, like the warrior, has his right foot resting upon a pile of stones. He wears a fillet and a himation, which is loosely draped across his shoulder, chest, and thigh. At the lower left of the scene a youth facing the naiskos stands holding a beaded fillet in his right hand and a box or cista in his left. At the right a female figure strides toward the naiskos. She holds an ornate mirror in her right hand and a laurel branch decorated with a billowing white fillet in her left hand. A white fillet hangs below the mirror. The women are all similarly dressed: wearing foot coverings indicated in added white, necklaces, bracelets, one wearing an anklet, and long, belted chitons; their hair is gathered up into kekryphaloi. The youths, although virtually nude, are also dressed alike and wear only fillets around their heads with mantles loosely draped across their bodies, or forming a comfortable surface on which to sit. Subsidiary decoration of the vase consists of an egg and dart pattern encircling the edge of the lip and shoulder, with a band of tongues around the shoulder where it joins the neck; masks painted in added white, well-preserved with painted details on the front side of the vase, decorate the volutes; three-dimensional protomes of water-birds flank the handles at the shoulders. On the front side of the vase, the neck is decorated with a band of rosettes, a row of white-painted palmettes enclosed within crossed volutes that form heart shapes, and a highly stylized frieze of downward and upward facing acanthus flowers and leaves from which spring winged female figures. The first figure holds a “xylophone” in her right hand and phiale in her left; the next figure, partially preserved, holds a bell in her right hand. On the back side of the vase the neck is decorated with a band of the “running wave” motif, a vine of ivy with berries in added white, and, as preserved, part of a palmette-volute scroll. Palmettes and volute scrolls decorate the sides of the vase beneath the handles.

Typical for works by the Darius Painter and other South Italian vase painters, the decoration for the reverse, or back side of the vase, is ornate but relatively simple and schematic in its iconography. A warrior stands within a white naiskos having ionic columns and acroteria of palmettes in added white; the pedestal of the naiskos is embellished with a scroll of volutes and flowers, also in added white. The warrior wears a fillet and a chlamys clasped at the neck. With his right foot resting upon a pile of stones, the he holds up a crested helmet in his right hand and steadies a shield in his left; a fillet hangs below the helmet. In the upper part of the scene, two pairs of figures flank the naiskos: at the left a nude youth is seated upon a mantle and holds a large shallow phiale in his right hand and a staff in his left. A woman stands before him, her legs crossed, holding a beaded fillet in one hand and mirror in the other. To the right of the naiskos a woman seated upon a mantle holds a long spray of flowers in her right hand as she turns to look at a youth who leans forward to touch her shoulder. The youth

The Darius Painter, who takes his name from the famous krater in Naples that depicts the enthroned Persian king, Darius, is one of the foremost artists of South Italian vase painting. He preferred to paint vases of large dimensions and was one of

the first vase painters to explore new canons of figural arrangement for the relatively expansive area to be decorated. As the noted scholar of South Italian vase painting, A. D. Trendall, has pointed out, new vases attributed to the Darius Painter serve to enhance and further his reputation as one of the greatest of Apulian vase painters – an artist who demonstrates a remarkable range of subject matter, especially in the field of mythology. A competent painter as well as draftsman, he is fond of representing the human figure in three quarter view, as he does so ably – almost in a manner heralding Renaissance perspective – with the portrayal of the mortally wounded male figure depicted at the lower right on the front side of this volute krater. The faces of his figures are also remarkably expressive, which the artist makes possible through subtle and exact drawing of a figure’s eyes and mouth. The fold-lines of his drapery are clearly drawn, but break up across the body to suggest a three dimensional, voluminous aspect that may be used to indicate either billowing or draping cloth. As a master artist, the Darius Painter exercised a dominating influence on all subsequent Apulian vase painting. He was the first among late Apulian vase painters to explore the possibilities that monumental vases offer for decoration. This volute krater, which depicts an emotionally wrenching view of the Iliupersis and the misery associated with the termination of the Trojan War, stands as an equal to the Darius Painter’s most important works.

PROVENANCE Property of a Swiss Collector; 1994 – 1995, Acquired from Monsieur Pierre Sciclounoff; Before 1964, Property of Monsieur Piere Bouffard.

PUBLISHED IN “Homère chez Calvin: Figures de l’hellénisme à Genève”, Geneva 2000, p. 261 no. C18.

NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY On this painter, see:

Cambitoglou, C., J. Chamay, C. Aellen, Le peintre de Darius et son mileau: vases grecs d’Italie méridionale (Geneva 1986), 111-117, for a comparable volute krater by the Darius Painter depicting the departure of Amphiaros, Cleveland Museum of Art 88.41. Hedreen, G. Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art (Michigan 2001), for extensive bibliography and further references regarding the fall of Troy, particularly the death of Priam, rape of Kassandra, recovery of Helen, sanctuaries of Zeus and of Troy: 22-90. Mayo, M. The Art of South Italy: Vases from Magna Graecia (Richmond 1982), 79, 126-27, nos. 48, 49 for the Darius Painter. Moret, J. L’Ilioupersis dans la Ceramique Italiote, Tome 1, (Rome 1975), for volute kraters with scenes of the Iliupersis: British Museum F 160, attributed to the Ilioupersis Painter, pl. 8, 9, 10.1; British Museum F 278, pl. 20, 21; Berlin 1968.11, pl. 22, 23. Padgett, J., et al., Vase-Painting in Italy: Red-Figure and Related Works in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston 1993), 110-122, nos. 4144, for the Darius Painter and further references. Schmidt, M. Der Dareios Maler und sein Umkreis:Untersuchungen zur spätapulischen Vasenmalerei (Münster 1960). Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily (New York 1989), 89 – 90, figs. 200 – 206; fig. 203, Darius Painter’s volute krater (name piece) depicting Darius, Naples 3253; fig. 204, his volute krater depicting the funeral of Patroclus, Naples 3254. Trendall, A. D., and A. Cambitoglou, First Supplement to the RedFigured Vases of Apulia (London 1983), 78, no. 41a, pl. 12, Darius Painter’s volute krater depicting Medea at Eleusis, Princeton University Art Museum. Trendall, A. D., and A. Cambitoglou, Second Supplement to the RedFigured Vases of Apulia, Part 1 (London 1991), 146-47, pl. 35.1, Darius Painter’s volute krater depicting the horses of Rhesos, Berlin 1984.39; his volute krater depicting an assembly of divinities, Leningrad inv. 1709. Reverdin, O. Homére chez Calvin, (Geneva 2000), 189-190, 261, no. C 20. Virgil, The Aeneid 2:1-998, “The Final Hours of Troy,” translated by R. Fagles, (New York 2006), 74-102.

Red Figure Krater Attributed to the Painter of Cadmos Greek, Attic, late 5th century B.C. Ceramic H: 35.3 cm

The vase is intact, except for some chips on the lip and on the foot; the drawing of the figures is partially lost.

the conventional subject and the more summary style of the three painted figures on the other side of the vase. It is possible that two artists decorated this work: a confirmed painter for the komos scene, and an apprentice for the subsidiary scene. This vase was recently attributed by R. Guy to the painter of Cadmos, a well-known Athenian artist of the late 5th century.

The bell krater is one of the most significant shapes from the late 5th and 4th century B.C. Greek canon; the body of the container, in the shape of an upside down bell, has a large high, circular foot. The decoration is composed of two different scenes, painted on both sides of the crater: the main scene depicts a komos with five figures (a young man with a torch, a double flute player and three dancers); the young man in the center seems to approach the musician. The Greek word komos describes the procession that precedes and/or follows the banquet, whether unbridled in nature with music and games, or serious and mystical. On the other side, the image is more stereotyped: three standing figures converse peacefully (two men surrounding a woman). Meanders and olive-branch friezes frame the scenes. It is necessary to bring attention to the high artistic quality of the main scene (the very elaborate posture of the frontally positioned dancers, the precise and refined drawing), which contrasts with

PROVENANCE Ex-Feuardent collection, France, collected in the late 19th century (an old sticker with n. 3061 is stuck on the base).

BIBLIOGRAPHY On the painter of Cadmos: BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (ARV2), vol. II, Oxford, 1968, p. 1184-1186; pp. 1685-1686. BOARDMAN J., Athenian Red Figure Vases, The Classical Period, A Handbook, London, 1989, p. 167, fig. 310-312. On the komos: GHIRON-BISTAGNE P., Recherches sur les acteurs dans la GrĂ¨ce antique, Paris, 1976, pp. 207-297.

Red Figure Calyx Krater Attributed To The Darius Painter South Italian, Apulian, 340-320 B.C. Ceramic H: 48.2 cm

The obverse with Dionysos seated in the center, leaning against two pillows, a himation wrapped around his legs and over his left arm, holding a phiale and a branching thyrsos, a thymiaterion and fillet to the left, a bowl and amphora below, a femalestanding to the left, wearing an elaborately-patterned long-sleeved garment and a chlamys, playing the aulos, a tree behind, a nude satyr to the right, holding the handle of a rhyton and a situla, rosettes and a fillet above, winged and bejeweled Eros above, seated on a himation, holding a tympanum, a phiale to the left; a double band of ivy and a thin band of ovolo below; the reverse with a nude young satyr moving left but looking back, holding a filleted torch in his right hand, a phiale

in his left, a youth to the right, nude but for a chlamys, holding a banded situla in his right hand, a filleted laurel branch in his left, plants and a phiale below, fillets, a rosette and window above; a band of meander below, a band of laurel encircling above, details in added white and yellow.

PROVENANCE From the Allen E. Paulson Living Trust. Anonymous sale; Sothebyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, LND, 13-14.12.1982, lot 290. with Royal-Athena Gal, NY, early 1980s. with Summa Gal, Beverly Hills, mid 1980s.

Red Figure Bell Krater By the Amykos Painter Greek, Hellenistic, 420-400 B.C. Ceramic H: 27.5 cm

Finely painted with a laurel band below the rim. Side A: Two athletes stand facing one another, to the left the young man holds a staff in his left hand, to the right the smiling youth wears a laurel wreath in his curled hair, a himation over his left shoulder, holding stick in left hand and aryballossuspended from strings in his outstretched right, a reserved decorative frieze containing meander and cross forms the ground-line Side B: Two draped youths face one another, one holding a staff, an animal pelt hanging in the field between them, groundline as on side A.

Shallow chip 2.8 cm. long on centre of rim on Side A (visible in illustration). Restored 3 cm. chip to front lower edge of foot on side A. A few small chips to upper edge of foot. A few minor nicjs, eg to rim of vessel. Some abrasions and light pitting, eg Side B to upper body and head of youth on right who also has some pitting to back of drapery which has some overpainting to black lines of drapery folds. A few abrasions with infill including in Side B, fingers and mouth and across thighs of youth on left. There is a thin horitonzal surface scratch extending from above ankle of left youth on Side B, to just above the start of the meander frieze behind staff of right youth on Side A. Some mottling to red decoration overall; and varnishing to surface overall. Some light surface encrustation, mainly under the foot. A red inscribed “K105” on the back edge of foot; the underside of foot with ink inscribed numbers and an old ink inventory label “73”.

This vase was produced in Lucania, an ancient district of Southern Italy. Attic pottery dominated the export market in the 5th Century B.C. and was so popular that local South Italian workshops or ‘schools’ developed, strongly influenced by Attic stylebut producing exclusively for local markets. It is attributed to the Amykos Painter, one of the finest Lucanian painters, who takes his name from the representation of the punishment of Amykos on the shoulder of a vessel in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. He was active at the end of the 5th Century B.C., working from around 430 to 400 B.C.; over half of his extant vases are bell-kraters.

PROVENANCE Property from the Collection of the Princely House of Liechtenstein; acquired by Prince Johann II (1840-1929) in the late 19th/early 20th Century.

PUBLISHED IN

The red colour is slightly less bright than in the printed catalogue illustrations.

A. D. Trendall, The Red-Figured vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily, Oxford 1967, p. 39, no. 168 (85).

Red Figure Bell Krater Attributed To The Darius Painter South Italian, Apulian, 350-330 B.C. Ceramic H: 44.5 cm

Decorated in front with a youth holding a thyrsus and kantharos, a maenad holding a torch and tambourine, and a satyr playing the double flute, bunches of grapes above, and on the reverse with three draped youths, one holding a staff, another a strigil,each wearing a radiate stephane; the details in added white and yellow.

PROVENANCE Acquired in 1974 either in England, Switzerland, or Japan. Property from a Japanese collection.

Red-Figure Kylix with a Music Teacher and Schoolboy 1

Attributed to the Brygos Painter 2 Greek, Attic, ca. 490-480 B.C. Ceramic H: 33.7 cm - D: 21.5 cm (29.2 cm d. with handles)

Recomposed from fragments, but largely complete with only minor in-painting of cracks. There are drill holes remaining from ancient repairs on the bowl.

in front of the boy, holding them over his head. The boy, who holds a writing case in his right hand, raises his left hand, as though in self-defense. The flute case, sybene, represented as a long, rectangular shape, hangs in the background to the left of the teacher.

A kylix is a wine-cup with a broad, shallow bowl and two horizontal handles that slant slightly upward from the sides of the cup. This example has a trumpet shaped foot that forms a continuous profile with the bowl. The kylix is covered with black slip on the exterior, with only areas near the handles and interiors of the handles themselves reserved in the reddish color of the clay. 3 The figural scene on the interior of the cup, set within a circular tondo, is framed by an ornamental band consisting of stopt, paired maeanders facing right, and separated by a crossin-square design. 4 Within the tondo, wearing a himation draped over his shoulder and leaning on a long staff, the central figure, a music teacher, stands holding in his right hand a lyre with a sound box made from a tortoise shell, a chelys (“tortoise”)-lyra. In his left hand he holds a double flute, auloi. At the lower right is the teacher’s stool, diphros, upon which is a cushion decorated with a zigzag pattern. The teacher seems distraught with the young student who sits dejectedly on a small, box-shaped stool. In this scene, perhaps the boy has angered his instructor by being ill-prepared or off key; if so, the Brygos Painter provides us with a believable scenario from everyday life – the music lesson “gone wrong.” The teacher appears to brandish the auloi

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In ancient Greece, the lyre, one of the simplest and perhaps most important of all Greek stringed instruments, was an essential accompaniment for the recitation of poetry, following the Athenian custom of singing poetry to music. A music lesson including the lyra was part of early training that any well-bred Athenian youth would be familiar with, and it is abundantly illustrated in Greek vase painting (see no.XX, a kylix by the Epidromos Painter). The chelys-lyra seems to be especially associated with youths and young men, since it was the chief instrument they were taught to play and expected to master. By the Hellenistic period the term “lyric poetry” is used to describe a category of sung (as opposed to recited) poetry combined with music. The aulos is the instrument most commonly associated with the lyra and is depicted with it in vase painting both in mythological contexts and scenes of everyday life. They are rarely seen played together, and then only occasionally in scenes of procession. 5 The fact that musical competence was expected among the educated class is also attested in literature. Plutarch writes that one of the grounds on which Themistocles was attacked by his opponents was his lack of competence with the lyre:

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…when Themistocles was jeered at in liberal and refined discourses carried on by those who thought they were educated, he was forced to defend himself vulgarly by saying that he did not know how to tune a lyra….but could only, if he took a small an inglorious city, make it glorious and great. 6 The Brygos Painter, along with Onesimos, Makron, and Douris, is one of the leading cup painters of the late Archaic period. Of all the artists active at this time, the Brygos Painter demonstrates some of the most innovative poses based on observations of nature, and characteristically, he is particularly adept at portraying situations from everyday life. Prolific in output, with over two hundred vases attributed to his hand, the Brygos Painter is named after the potter Brygos, for whom he painted some of his finest cups. His early works, which date to the years before 490 B.C., are contemporary with the early work of Onesimos; his mature period is essentially the decade after 490 B.C., the time during which he painted this kylix. The head of the music teacher, rendered with an expressive, open mouth, high brows above narrow eyes, and a long, straight nose-line, exemplifies the Brygos Painter’s mature style. The artist is known generally for his realistic representations of children, and on this kylix the painter’s ability to depict them accurately is evident in his drawing of the diminutive schoolboy, who seems to cower under the raised hand of his teacher. 7 Typical for clothing by the Brygos Painter, the himatia of both the teacher and schoolboy have regular folds following the shape of the body only in a general way, giving the drapery a starched appearance.

PROVENANCE Ex-London art market, acquired in the 1980’s. 1

5 6 7

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For the shape, see Richter and Milne 1935, XX; Noble 1988, 57; Schreiber 1999, 148-63. Attributed by J. Michael Padgett. For the Brygos Painter, see ARV2 368-85; Paralipomena; BAdd2 224-29; Beazley 1918, 89-93; Caskey and Beazley 1936, 13-26; Beazley 1953, 74-83; Cambitoglou 1968; Wegner 1973; Boardman 1975, 135-36; Robertson 1992, 93-100. Some kylikes are decorated inside and out, and some inside only (as this example), but never on the outside only. A narrow cross-in-square, above and to the right of the music teacher’s head, is next to the only single meander. It is an exception to the sequence of decorative meanders and crosses and marks the point at which the painter began and ended the decorative band and was obligated to abbreviate the design – an unusual aspect evident on some tondo borders that is amusingly termed the “odd man out” by Beazley. For the lyra, see Maas and Snyder 1989, 79-112. Plutarch, Themistokles 2.4. Beazley remarked that the Brygos Painter paints “one of the first, one of the only, real children in vase painting” on a skyphos in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: Boston 10.176. ARV2 381.173; Beazley 1918, 90.

Red Figure Kylix with Youths Attributed to the Penthesilea Painter Greek, Attic, circa 460 B.C. Ceramic H: 9.5 cm - D: 24 cm

A kylix is a wine-cup with a broad, shallow bowl and two horizontal handles, slanting slightly upward from the sides of the cup. This example has a trumpet shaped foot that forms a continuous profile with the bowl. Areas near the handles and the interiors of the handles themselves are reserved in the reddish color of the clay. Under each handle is a circumscribed palmette with tendrils at the sides and at the base of each palmette. There are two reserved lines on either side of the rim. A graffito of two letters, in the shape of a closed * (eta) and a (gamma of fifth century B.C. form), is incised on the underside of the foot, between a concentric band and a line of black slip. The Penthesilea Painter was named by Beazley after a composition on the interior of a large kylix in Munich depicting an amazonomachy, a battle between Greeks and Amazons, in this case likely representing Achilles killing Penthesilea. Reflecting the trend toward greater naturalism in the early Classical Period, the drawing style of the Penthesilea Painter and his associates, at first glance, appears sketchy and hasty compared with their predecessors, but their figures are more lively and fluid, and they adopt more inventive poses. This kylix is an exquisite example of the painter’s style. It is one of a large number of cups issuing from the Penthesilea Painter’s workshop, which was established shortly after 470 B.C. and lasted for at least three decades. Beazley assigned some 1500 vases to the artist and his associates, naming twenty painters involved in their manufacture. This is one of the earliest instances in vase painting where the organization of painters in such a large workshop can be so clearly noted. The Penthesilea Painter himself stands out from his associates not only for his skills as a draftsman but also for the liveliness and naturalism of his figural compositions, which seem to take us into the very heart of Athenian society with its workers, wives, athletes, and citizen warriors. Occasionally, two painters in his workshop collaborated on a single vase – almost forty examples involving ten painters have been noted. On examples where the Penthesilea Painter himself collaborated with another artist, it was he who painted the tondo, while the other artist decorated the exterior. This may indicate that the interior decoration of a cup was considered the principal field for decoration.

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The figure scene on the interior of the cup is set within a tondo framed by an ornamental band consisting of stopt meanders facing left and three cross-in-square designs. A standing youth, wearing a himation dropped to his waist, leans on a walking stick while gesturing to a boy seated on a stool. The boy is muffled in a himation that covers his head and holds a walking stick diagonally across his lap. To the left is a laver with its basin supported by a small Ionic column. The basin is inscribed with four letters, perhaps )"$& – “boy.” The laver, used by athletes for washing, sets the scene in the palaestra. The inscription, *% )"$& [0] "-%& – “the boy is beautiful,” is written in the field. The scenes on both sides of the cup’s exterior are thematically related, each showing youths in a school setting. In the center of side A, a youth is seated on a type of high-backed chair, a klismos, usually reserved for use by the teacher rather than pupil. The seated youth’s hair, short cropped and curly, provides him with an added distinction since the other figures have longer, straight hair. Wearing a himation and holding a walking stick, as do all of the figures, the youth leans forward in a natural pose, extending his right hand, in which he holds a flower. This is perhaps a gift for the youth standing at the right, who bows toward the seated youth and holds an open writing case in his outstretched right hand. A bag for gaming pieces, a phormiskos, hangs in the field between the two figures. At the far left, a standing youth is twisting around to look back at the interaction between the other two youths. His crossed legs and expressive gesture lend an air of reality to the pose. Half of a shield, decorated with a device representing a chariot wheel, hangs between the standing and seated youths. The inscription, *% )"$&, is written twice, and in two lines, at the upper right and left sides of the figure scene, near the handles. On the other side of the cup, side B, three youths wearing himatia and holding walking sticks are engaged in a lively encounter, with animated postures and expressive, gesturing hands. The central figure walks to the right, holding a phormiskos in his left hand and a walking stick in his right. His bare upper torso, displaying distinctive clavicles and well-developed pectoral

muscles, is frontal, while his left leg is in profile and his right leg is in three-quarter view. This youth is a particularly exquisite example of the lively, free-style of figure drawing that is a hallmark of red-figure vase painting of this period. To the left and right stand two of his companions, who gesture toward him with outstretched arms. At the far left stands a column with an Ionic capital supporting a partially shown frieze of triglyphs and metopes, perhaps indicating a colonnaded stoa, the location of the youth’s academic instruction. The inscription, *% )"$& 0"-%&, is written in two lines at the upper right of the scene, between the central figure and the youth at the right.

PROVENANCE Formerly in the collection of C.J.D., Switzerland.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BOTHMER D., A Cup in Berne, Hefte des Archäologischen Seminars der Universität Bern, 7, 1981, pp. 39-40. JOHNSTON A.W., Trademarks on Greek Vases, Warminster, 1979 BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1963, 879.1 SHAPIRO H.A., PICON C.A., SCOTT G.D., Greek Vases in the San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, 1995, 172-173

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Red Figure Cup without a Foot Attributed to Douris Greek (Attic), circa 490-480 B.C. Ceramic H: 3.5 cm - D: (without the handles) 13.8 cm

Despite minor chips, the vessel is virtually intact with some minor chips, and the black paint has partially faded or is fading to brown (hair of the young man, inside of the cup). It was decorated in the red figure process, a technique in which the figures (which are not painted) were left in the brick-red color typical of Attic clay, while the background of the vase was painted in black.

man (;<794;=:48, three measures; the kotyle being a capacity measure widely used for the retailing of wine). This cup, which is known since the 1930’s, has been widely exhibited and published. Its interest is not only iconographic, as one just observed, but also artistic, since the quality of the drawing and the precision of the details, or even the anatomy of the torso, are remarkable, as well as the symmetrical organization of the decorated area.

In the tondo, the scene represents a rare image of daily life in Classical Athens: a young standing man, wearing leather shoes with laces and dressed in a large himation that is nonchalantly draped over the left shoulder, stretches his right arm towards a terracotta amphora which is held in balance on a cylindrical foot. As a counterpart to this large vase, on the right of the scene, is a pithos, a vessel which was intended, like the amphorae, for the storage of foods (wine, oil, wheat). An oinochoe, used to serve wine, hangs in the black background of the image.

The attribution of this piece to Douris, one of the most famous cups painters among the Attic artists of the early 5th century B.C. is now widely accepted by archaeological critics.

PROVENANCE Ex-Prof. Jakob Rosenberg collection, Cambridge Massachusetts, USA, 1937; ex-British collection; acquired on the American art market, New York, 1986.

The tondo is bordered by a band of black meanders and metopes adorned with a cross.

EXHIBITED Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, n. 501, 1937. The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2001-2009).

The scene, which is rather rare in ancient iconography but sometimes described in ancient written sources, unfolds in the shop of a wine merchant. With his right hand, the young man is plunging a sponge into the amphora, to taste the wine stored in the vessel and smell its bouquet. In his other hand, which is visible between the folds of his cloak, he holds a small bag, his purse. On the background of the tondo (near the rim, right of the figure), two inscriptions in red-painted Greek letters have unfortunately faded (they are visible only in backlight). One is simply the dedication of the cup (4 5678 96:48 “to the beautiful boy”), while the other probably indicates the quantity of wine purchased or the quality of the beverage desired by the young

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PUBLISHED IN HOLLAND B.M., A Kylix in the Fogg Art Museum, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 52, 1941, pp. 41-63, pl. 1. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum USA 8, Fogg Museum and Gallatin Collection, Cambridge (Mass.), pp. 35-36, pl. 19, 2. FORBES R.J., Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. III, Leiden, 1955, pp. 112-113. IMMERWAHR H., An Athenian Wineshop, in Proceedings of the American Philological Association 79, 1948, pp. 184-190. BEAZLEY J.D., Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, vol. 1, Oxford, 1963, pp. 426 and 445, n. 252. BUITRON D.M., Attic Vase Painting in New England Collections, Cambridge (Mass.), 1972, pp. 102-103, n. 54.

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Red-Figure Kylix with a Woman Holding a Staff and Bird Attributed to the Ambrosios Painter Greek, Attic, Late 6th – early 5th century B.C. Ceramic D: (with handles) 25 cm

Within the plain bordered tondo of this kylix, a woman runs to the right while holding a long staff in her left hand and a waterbird in her right hand. She wears a fillet and a necklace, and is dressed in a diaphanous, short-sleeved chiton that reveals the form of her body beneath the garment. The edges of the sleeves and neck of the chiton are bordered by a decorative band indicated by three parallel lines. The lower part of her dress is delineated by parallel vertical lines to suggest the folds of the fine cloth from which the chiton is made. The Ambrosios painter was describe by Beazley as “never dull,” and Boardman cites

the painter for the “sheer verve of his figures, not without some skill in posture and composition” which this cup tondo bears out. For comparison with the Ambrosios painter’s work similar to this cup, see particularly the cup fragment in Amsterdam (ARV 173.7) showing a satyr and maenad, also the maenad on a cup fragment from the Acropolis (ARV 173.8).

PROVENANCE European private collection.

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Red-Figure Lekythos with a Youth Offering a Libation at an Altar Greek, Attic, ca. 500 B.C. Ceramic H: 29.6 cm

A young male figure dressed in a himation and wearing a white fillet or wreath stands before an altar. He supports a kythera with his left hand while he is about to pour a libation from the phiale in his right hand. The upper part of the altar is decorated with Ionic volutes beneath which is a band of egg or ovolo design. Flames of the altarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fire are depicted in added red, and markings from the blood of sacrificial animals are indicated by three groups of red lines on the side of the altar. The kithara was the primary instrument, besides the aulos (flute), on which contestants performed in musical competitions held at religious festivals. If not the patron of music himself, the god Apollo, the youthful figure is a participant in a musical contest who is likely praying to the god for success in this endeavor or gives thanks for his victory.

A graffito kalos inscription, THEODOROS KALOS, extends from the head of the figure and down the side of the vase, to the right of the altar. Theodoros is also praised on cups dating to about 500 B.C. by the Epeleios Painter, although he is not the painter of this lekythos. The neck of the lekythos is decorated with a band of tongues where it joins the shoulder. An arrangement of black-figure rather than red-figure palmettes, lotus flowers, and volutes decorating the shoulder speaks to an earlier date than other lekythoi with red-figure decoration of the shoulder. The ground line of the scene is formed by pairs of meanders between cross-squares.

PROVENANCE Ex-collection Louis-Gabriel Bellon (1819 ? 1899), France.

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Red Figure Lekythos with Two Erotes Greek, Attic, ca. 490-480 B.C. Ceramic H: 33.5 cm

The shoulder of the vase is decorated with two Erotes on either side of a central decoration of palmettes and volutes; palmettes flank the handle. Amusingly, and in spite of their downturned mouths, both Erotes seem at home as they walk with a lively, springing gait in the midst of palmettes and tendrils. Both with outspread wings, the Erote on the left holds a stem of a volute tendril in his left hand while the Erote on the right holds volute tendrils in both hands. The sides of the vase were intended to be black, but misfiring in the kiln resulted in a red-brown and black mottled effect. A tongue design encircles the neck where it joins the shoulder, and a band of a simple key facing right extends between horizontal lines, running around the upper rim of the body where it joins the shoulder.

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This lekythos is related to a vase in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts painted with a scene depicting the death of Aegisthos and a lekythos in Oxford decorated with a rooster and a hen. Erotes holding palmettes are depicted by Douris, the Syriskos Painter and others, but this vase is by another hand. See D. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi: Patterns and Painters (Oxford 1975), 124, pl. 65, 1a.

PROVENANCE Ex-Robin Symes Limited, 1991.

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Red Figure Lekythos with Eos Pursuing Kephalos or Tithonos Attributed to the Nikon Painter Greek, Attic, ca. 450 B.C. Ceramic H: 26 cm

The neck of the lekythos is decorated with dotted ovolo pattern where it joins the shoulder. An arrangement of red-figure palmettes, lotus flowers, and volutes decorate the shoulder. The figural scene on the side of the lekythos is framed above and below by a band of meander design.

breaks and by whom she became the mother of Memnon, the eastern prince and Trojan ally. Eos begged Zeus to grant her beloved Tithonos immortality, which he did, but the goddess forgot to ask that it be accompanied by eternal youth, hence he withered away until nothing was left until a piping husk, which resulted in the ancient Greek explanation for the origin of cicadas. Eos’ love was used as a metaphor for death, and is connected with the Greek practice of conducting burials at night, with the soul departing at daybreak.

Described as “rosy-fingered” and “saffron robed” in Homer, the myth of Eos, goddess of the dawn, focuses on her role as a predatory lover: she is known for carrying off handsome hunters, such as Kephalos, as they stalk their prey in the morning twilight, or seizes the Trojan prince, Tithonos, to be a heavenly lover. It is Tithonos and his bed which she leaves when day

PROVENANCE European private collection.

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Red Figure Loutrophoros Attributed to The Baltimore Painter Italiote (Apulia), end of the 4th century B.C. Ceramic H: 89 cm

The vase is reassembled and shows only minor repairs. The foot is lost and the lip is restored. The vessel is decorated in the so-called red-figure technique, with many details indicated in added white (architecture, garments, etc.), purple (ribbons) and golden yellow paint (luxury tableware, decorations, etc.). The loutrophoros is a large vase with elongated and elegant proportions, provided with a cylindrical body the wall of which may be flared, and with a long, thin neck terminating in a wide flaring lip; the foot is in the shape of a trumpet. Originally, the examples coming from Greece have exuberant handles, often decorated with large volutes, while some Apulian versions, like our example, are totally devoid of handles. For this reason, A.D. Trendall names the loutrophoroi without handles barrel-amphorae, a term which is sometimes also used in French. This shape has an evident religious character, and was used to store and carry the water for ritual ablutions, which were performed at ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. In the Italiote world, terracotta examples with a funeral purpose such as our loutrophoros were often devoid of bottom and were only meant to be deposited in the tomb (two pieces in each tomb). The decoration here is of funerary nature: on the front, the deceased is seated in a naiskos and holds an open box in her left hand, while a bronze or gold hydria is placed at her feet; in front of her, a young woman – probably one of her servants – dressed in a purple-edged tunic hands her a triangular, richly decorated lidded box. The presence of all objects in and under the naiskos not only indicates the high social status of the woman, but also reminds the domestic environment where she has lived, as opposed to the funeral world of the reverse, characterized by the grave with the rectangular stele adorned with white and black ribbons. The six young figures who complete both scenes (four women seated in the upper row; a young man and another woman at ground level), may be related to the sepulchral rites and ceremonies performed at the funeral, but according to other interpretations, they would also be part of the underworld, especially when they are represented in a still and static attitude.

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As often on this Southern Italian pottery, the subsidiary decoration is extremely rich and varied: geometric patterns (meanders, lines, rays, small tongues, etc.) alternate with vegetal motifs such as palmettes, tendrils, flowers, rosettes, branches, etc. On the shoulder, above the naiskos, the painter represented the bust of a young woman appearing amidst flowers and tendrils, while the opposite side displays a large palmette surrounded by scrolls. Stylistically, this painting can be linked with the work of the last red-figure Apulian painters, in particular with the works of the Baltimore Painter, probably active in the region of Canosa, to whom A.D. Trendall attributed our loutrophoros. The skillful use of colors, the rendering of the faces, the structured and rounded folds of the drapery, the utilization of the whole available decorative space are all elements that argue in favor of the attribution of this major composition to the Baltimore Painter, who was the last Italiote ceramic painter of importance.

PROVENANCE Property of the Allen E. Paulson Trust; Münzen und Medaillen AG, Basel, Switzerland, before 1982; Summa Gallery, Beverly Hills, USA, middle of the 1980’s.

PUBLISHED IN FRACCHIA H., Small Terracotta Discs. An Emerging Class of Artifact in Southern Italy in Bulletin Antike Beschauung (BABesch), 62, 1987, p. 89, fig. 3. TRENDALL A.D. - CAMBITOGLOU A., The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Oxford, 1982, pp. 869-870, n. 48 TRENDALL A.D. - CAMBITOGLOU A., Second Supplement to The RedFigured Vases of Apulia, II, London, 1992, p. 265.

BIBLIOGRAPHY CAVALIER O. (ed.), Terres sacrées de Perséphone, Collections italiotes du Musée Calvet, Avignon, Avignon, 2000, n. 23, pp. 90ff. On the Baltimore Painter and his workshop: TRENDALL A.D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London, 1989, pp. 97-100.

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Red Figure Oinochoe By The Triptolemos Painter Greek, Attic, ca. 480 B.C. Ceramic H: 29 cm

Finely potted and painted, the lip in two degrees decorated with ovolo frieze above, confronting meander and crosses below, with tooled groove within the rim and raised ring on the underside at the junction with the neck, the shoulder with horizontalband of ovolo forming the ground-line on which stands the figure of a lyre-player, painted in frontal pose, his bearded head turned towards his right shoulder and shown in profile, he wears a vine wreath in his hair and a long himation which is draped over his left shoulder leaving his upper right chest exposed, he holds a knobbled staff in his left hand and a lyre, from which hangs the plectrum, in his outstretched right hand; under the handle (missing) on the back of the neck the decorative motif is composed of four enclosed interlinked palmettes with spiral tendrils and two lateral lotus buds, a palmette at the base of the handle. The Triptolemos Painter was active in Athens from the 480s to the 470s B.C., painting alongside such great Archaic artists as the Kleophrades and Berlin Painters who were working during the first quarter of the 5th Century B.C.; painting and potting linkhis work with Douris. Prof. Sir John Boardman describes him as accomplished and versatile, and Beazley admired his ‘accomplished, strong, pure’ expression of Late Archaic art.

name listed by Beazley), its fine contours and tooling clearly recalling a metal vase shape. The angled lip, with its two zones of decoration, is perhaps unique. The decoration is exquisitely executed, from the friezes adorning the lip to the elegant florals which recall the Berlin Painter’s work. Handle and a section (under one quarter) of the rim missing at the rear, with repair line emanaring grom this break around part of the top of the neck and to the edge of the rim on one side (visible adhesive). Small surface chops to edge of repair line on exterior. The overhanging rim with two further small surface chips. Some mottled red descolouration to the black glaze from the original firing, and areas of crackling to the glaze (particularly on an area at either side of the body below the shoulder). General surface wear including minor pitting and abrasions to surface. Red ink number “K135” on interior of tim with old invertory label on base.

PROVENANCE Property from the Collection of the Princely House of Liechtenstein; acquired by Prince Johann II (1858-1929) in the late 19th Century.

PUBLISHED IN

The Triptolemos Painter, who takes his name from a vase depicting the departure of Triptolemos, started his career as a cuppainter but turned his hand to a variety of vase shapes. The above vase is highly unusual in shape (the only one under his

Katalog der Archäologischen Ausstellung (22 Mai-31 August 1893), Wien, 1893, no. 1023. J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1963, p. 363, no. 25.

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Red Figure Patera with a Biga Driven by Nike Italiote (Magna Graecia), ca. 330-310 B.C. Ceramic D: 71 cm

Despite small repairs, this large dish is whole but has been reconstituted. The beige terracotta has been covered with a coating of miltos (red pigment) to imitate the appearance of Attic pottery. The black painting still retains part of its original luster, with white, yellow and red highlights indicating details of the fi gures and of the garland of leaves. This is a distinctive form of the Apulian repertory from the second half of the 4th century B.C.: mounted on a small, molded ring foot, the patera is wide and shallow. It is equipped with a flat lip with two ribbed handles. The conical plastic knobs that fl ank the handles are reminiscent of the original metal examples of the shape. The figural decoration is limited to the inner vessel: a continuous garland of leaves, overpainted in white and yellow, surrounds a frieze of waves, providing a border for the main subject depicted in the tondo. Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, has launched her biga (chariot) at full speed toward the left. The speed of the race is emphasized by the spread wings of the goddess, and the raised forelegs of the horses. In the fi eld, a white dog precedes the horses while leaves, fl owers and pebbles characterize the natural environment in which the scene unfolds.

represent the rich polychromy of the chariot and its tiller. The goddess is depicted in three-quarter view painted in white, with gold highlights. Her wings qualify her as a supernatural, or even mythological being. Stylistically, this patera can be attributed to the work of late red-fi gure Apulian painters, including the so-called White Sakkos Group and the Kantharos Group, who often painted scenes similar to those depicted in our piece. This container would have probably been used for rituals at funerals. Our example is among the largest examples currently preserved.

PROVENANCE Ex-European private collection; acquired on the German art market, Munich, in 1992.

PUBLISHED IN Sothebyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New York, Antiquities and Islamic Art, December 14th, 1994, lot 119.

BIBLIOGRAPHY SCHNEIDER-HERRMANN G., Apulian Red-Figured Paterae with Flat or knobbed Handles, London, 1977, p. 100-101, n. 158, 160, and 161, pl. XV. TRENDALL A. D., The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Oxford, 1982, pp. 975ff. ; and pp. 978 ff.

High artistic quality of the painting has been demonstrated by the precise organization of the decoration, as well as the accurate rendering of all elements, including the details that

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Red Figure Patera with Artemis on a Panther South Italian (Magna Graeca), ca. 330-310 B.C. Ceramic D: 34 cm

Despite some small areas of fill, this patera is complete, having been reconstructed from its constituent pieces. The beige clay is covered with a red coating (miltos) applied to imitate Attic ceramics. The vase is painted black with details of the figures and leafy garland in added white, yellow and red.

in this role during the archaic period of Greek art, but is rarely shown in this way in South Italian art. The Phrygian cap worn by the goddess supports her identification as “potnia theron”. The rest of her garb is canonical for the goddess: a short chiton under an animal skin (a nebris, or doe’s hide?) which is rendered in added white; her feet are clad in soft boots tied at her shin.

The patera is a common shape in 4th century Apulian pottery: sitting on a small, molded ring base, the patera is large and shallow. It has a flat lip which has a perpendicular edge decorated with a wave motif. The two strap handles are flanked on each side with a plastic knob with a conical head in the shape of a mushroom. This vessel, which is often decorated with funereal scenes, was probably used in funeral rituals.

Surrounding her is a field, with plants and flowers, an indication that this scene is happening in the wild, the natural world.

The figural decoration is limited to the vase’s interior: a circular garland of leaves (painted in added white) encircles the interior, within this garland, is a frieze of “waves”, which in turn, surrounds the tondo. The tondo is decorated with a figure of a young woman sitting, like an Amazon, astride a wild animal; the animal, a female, whose spotted coat identifies her as a panther, supports herself, standing on her hind legs, while her forelegs are raised, positioned near the edge of the tondo. The animal’s face with its long tongue, is shown frontally: her features are almost human, reminiscent of the beautiful type gorgons.

Stylistically, this scene is close to those painted by the last painters of Apulian red figure; it is reminiscent in particular of the Hades painter or the Baltimore painter, and their workshops, who probably painted in and around Canosa. The fine use of colors, the rendering of the faces, the structure and curves of her drapery, the use of the entire tondo in the composition of the figural scene (and even outside of the tondo, where the panther’s legs escape the scene’s frame) all support this hypothesis.

PROVENANCE Ex-Collection Charles Gillot (1853 - 1903), Paris, France.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The identification of the young woman as Artemis is aided by the presence of her bow, one of her most common attributes. Goddess of nature and the hunt, Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo, holds her weapon in her left hand, close to the panther’s neck (the bottom of the bow, painted in added white, has been lost), while he goads on her mount with her right. The goddess is depicted here in her role as “Potnia Theron”, the mistress of wild beasts and nature. Artemis is often depicted

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SCHNEIDER-HERRMANN G., Apulian Red-Figured Paterae with Flat or knobbed Handles, London, 1977, p. 112, n. 187, pl. XVI, 2. TRENDALL A.D., The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Oxford, 1982, pp. 866-867, n. 30, pl. 326, 3; p. 868, n. 40, pl. 327. On the Baltimore Painter and his workshop: TRENDALL A.D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London, 1989, pp. 97-100.

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Red-Figure Pelike with Deities and Mortals

Attributed to the Chamay Painter 2 South Italian, Apulian, ca. 350-340 B.C. Ceramic H: 43.0 cm

The vase is intact, except for a small hole on side A and some surface chips on side A and B. Overall the added white slip is well preserved, but is fugitive in some areas. On the neck, between the handles, there is a large decorative band comprised of crossed double volutes in added white, bordered by a dotted ovolo band above and below. The motif is completed below with a row of white dots, hanging like pendants from a necklace. The figural scene is bordered below with a band of meanders separated by checkerboard squares. Each handle is decorated with a branch of white-berried myrtle, a plant associated with the goddess Aphrodite. Below the handles a large decorative motif consists of six elongated palmettes in two rows of three. The lower, central palmette and the upper palmettes at left and right are enclosed. The arrangement is further embellished by half palmettes, rosettes, and attached leaves. A figure of a beardless male, probably Apollo, sits in the center of the scene on the front side of the vase. His wavy hair is tied in a fillet that hangs down onto his shoulders. With a kythera resting on his lap, the figure is plucking the strings with his left hand, and may be tuning the instrument with his right. He wears a himation dropped to his waist and laced shoes on his feet. The woman seated near him places her left arm around him in an endearing manner, and turns around as if she is about to listen to the music. Her wavy hair is elegantly coiffed, pulled up on top of her head in a chignon, with tresses flowing down over her right shoulder. She wears a chiton and a himation, which wraps around her waist and over the left shoulder. Additionally, she wears shoes and jewelry â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a necklace and bracelet in added white. An open coffer is depicted in perspective below the couple. To the left of the scene is a standing couple. A young man, nude except for a himation draped over his shoulders, places his right arm over the shoulder of a female companion. He gazes toward her, about to crown himself or the seated Apolline figure

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with a laurel wreath. His curly hair descends in tresses onto his shoulders like those of his companion. She wears a chiton and is wrapped in a himation, which she gracefully holds up in her raised left hand, her right hand muffled in the himation. She is dressed like the seated woman, wearing shoes, a necklace and bracelet in added white. The lower part of her chiton is adorned with rich embroidery, also in white. Another couple stands to the right, a woman wearing a himation drawn up over her head, and a woman dressed much like her counterpart on the left. The woman wrapped in a himation leans on her left elbow, resting upon a pillar in added white. She is elegantly posed and gracefully holds up her himation with her left hand, while placing her right on her hip. The other woman is dressed in a chiton fastened at each shoulder, and decorated with small hooked shapes to indicate that the garment is embroidered. In the area above this main scene, Aphrodite rides in a chariot drawn by Eros, with another Eros flying ahead. The car of the chariot and the draw bar were done in added white which has faded and is indistinct, but still visible. Aphrodite wears a necklace and bracelets, and is dressed in a finely decorated chiton and himation, which flows out behind her, giving the impression that the chariot is speeding through the air. The erotes, nude except for the necklaces and bracelets they wear, hold the drawbar of the chariot. Their hair is elegantly coiffed, like that of Aphrodite, and drawn up on their heads in a chignon. The lead Eros holds a fillet in his right hand. On the opposite side of the vase, at the far right, a woman stands at a laver. She is wearing a diaphanous chiton, which reveals the form of her legs and thighs beneath its folds. Her right leg is flexed with the right foot bent around her left. Like almost all the other women depicted on this vase, she wears fine jewelry and her hair is elegantly drawn up in a chignon. She leans on the basin of the laver, which is supported by a fluted column, and gestures gracefully toward the other figures in the

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scene. Nearby a branch grows up from the ground. In the center, a seated woman holds a large phiale in her raised right hand and a mirror in added white in her lowered left hand. At the left a youth, nude except for a wreath around his head and a himation gathered under his left arm, stands leaning on a staff in added white, now faded. Above this scene a seated woman, probably Aphrodite, wears a himation dropped to the waist and is nude from the waist up. She holds a bunch of grapes in her right hand and in her left hand, a mirror done in added white. To the right a small, a small seated Eros apparently held a wreath, now largely worn away. Trendall remarks that the Chamay Painter reflects the influence of the Varrese Painter, one of the more significant painters of the mid-fourth century B.C., and one who exercised influence not only on his followers, but also on the forerunners of the Darius Painter. 3 The Chamay Painterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s style is more mannered

than that of the Varrese Painter, both in the posing of his figures and the drawing of drapery. Hair is shown in a mass of fine curls done in dilute slip. For the women, breasts are far apart with covering drapery stretched tightly across them, indicated by parallel, horizontal folds between the breasts. Nude male bodies, while shapely and slightly muscular, show a growing tendency to effeminacy.

PROVENANCE Formerly in the collection of C.J.D., Switzerland. 1

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For this vase, see DĂśrig 1975, no. 278; Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978, 426, no. 57, pl. 156, fig. 1-2. For the Chamay Painter, see Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978, 426, nos. 57-60, pls. 156-57; Trendall 1989, 86, no. 185. For the School of the Varrese Painter, see Trendall 1989, 83-86.

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Red Figure Pelike Attributed by Beazley in the manner of the Painter of Leningrad Side A: Athena mounting a chariot, and a warrior - Side B: Men and youths looking on Greek, Attic, ca. 500 B.C. Ceramic H: 37 cm

The pelike is painted with an unusual scene on the front side, which depicts the departure of the goddess Athena as she steps up into a four-horsed chariot, as a warrior looks on and bids farewell with his raised hand. The warrior wears a “longtailed” and high-crested Corinthian helmet pushed back on his head and a cuirass having a volute design on the shoulder, while in his left hand he holds a shield decorated with a row of dots along its edge. Athena wears an equally “long tailed” and high-crested Attic helmet with its cheek pieces raised up along the sides and a long and flowing dotted chiton, over which her aegis drapes down from her shoulders, the curly fringe along its dotted edge meant to suggest the snakes that usually adorn this distinctive aspect of her attire. To the far left of the scene, beneath the handle, a draped youth holds a staff or scepter

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and is seated upon a rock. The back side of the vase depicts a procession of three bearded men and one beardless youth, all holding long staffs decorated with black bands. The youth leads the group toward a column with an Ionic capital. The first man holds his right hand up to his mouth and if distraught, and the second holds his hand up to his forehead as if in mourning.

PROVENANCE Brimo; ex-Domenicis

PUBLISHED IN GERHARD E., Auserlesene Vasenbilder (Berlin 1840-58), pl. 210; J.D. BEAZLEY, Attic Red Figure Vases Painters, Oxford 1963, p. 573.

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Fish-Plate with an Octopus, Striped Sea Perch, and a Dogfish Shark Attributed to the workshop of Asteas 2 South Italian, Paestan, ca. 340-330 B.C. Ceramic H: 6.5 cm - D: 30.0 cm

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Complete and intact. The plate was cracked and warped during firing in the kiln. Misfiring resulted in the rich, brown color of the background, except for a small area near the head of the sea perch and along the outer side of the plate, which fired black. The ring foot is chipped. Typical in form for fish-plates, this example is a concave plate with a central depression, a rounded, disc-shaped foot, and a turned down rim that forms a wide band around the edge of the plate. The central cavity probably held an accompanying fish sauce or served to catch liquid draining from the fish. Still a matter of debate, such fish imagery may have held a plate of fish that was served during the course of a funeral banquet. 3 It is surely a funerary vessel in any case, given the significance of fish and marine themes in South Italian religious symbolism. 4

(Pectunculus glycemeris) and a small clam (Chamelea gallina); one univalve shell – likely a turban snail (Gibbula). Added white is used to highlight details on the larger marine animals: the suction cups on the tentacles of the octopus; the eyes, gills and bellies of the fish; the spines of their fins and bodies, which also are covered with small white dots. Some shadowing is added with the use of dilute red slip, especially that modeling the serpentine body of the dogfish. Such attention to detail brings life to the scene, which is circled by a reserved band decorated with small, neatly placed black dots. The edge of the plate is decorated with a band of laurel leaves, and the underside is painted with a simple band and line of black glaze.

PROVENANCE

The noted scholar of South Italian vase painting, A. D. Trendall remarked that this fish-plate “is of particularly high quality, especially in the rendering of the dogfish and the octopus, which here takes up the typical Paestan position of resting, as it were, against the border of the depression: it is a forerunner of the more elaborately decorated fish-plates.” 5 Indeed, shown with great accuracy, as if the artist drew them from life, an octopus (Octopus vulgaris), 6 a dogfish shark (Mustelus vulgaris), and a striped sea perch (Labridae) are depicted swimming in their watery realm around the central depression of the plate. The theme of a seascape is reinforced by the pattern of running waves encircling the omphalos, the white crests of which are indicated with added white dots. The scene is highly animated: the octopus recoils and draws in its tentacles as if sensing danger; the stripped sea perch, seen from the side, is open mouthed and ready to strike; the dogfish shark is shown from above, swimming in an undulating motion, just as in nature when observed in shallow water. Smaller sea creatures painted in added white slip fill the space around the fish: a crustacean with nine pairs of legs; two bivalve shells – probably a cockle

Formerly in the collection of J. C., Geneva. 1

3 4 5 6

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For this fish-plate, see Aellen, Cambitoglou, Chamay 1986, 271-73, with photo on 272 and drawing on 273; McPhee and Trendall 1987, 105, no. 1, pl. 34a. For fish-plates see Lacroix 1937; Zimmermann 1967; Thimme 1969. For other examples from the workshop of Asteas, see Mayo 1982, 235-37, nos. 110, 111; McPhee and Trendall 1987, 103-05, nos. 3-10. Trendall remarks that there can be little doubt that this vase comes from the workshop of Asteas and Python: see McPhee and Trendall 1987, 104. Lacroix 1937, 33. Thimme 1969, 156. McPhee and Trendall 1987, 105. Hesiod and Theognis give brief, biologically accurate descriptions of the octopus; for additional references to the octopus in early Greek literature, see Harrington 1997, 81-86. For a study of Octopus vulgaris, and specifically human perceptions of the animal, see Wells 1978, 8-9. For another South Italian depiction of an octopus, see the black-figure jug in this catalogue, no. XX.

Red Figure Rhyton in the Shape of a Griffin Head Italiote (Apulia), ca. 340-320 B.C. Ceramic H: 20 cm

The work is virtually intact: only a few fragments have been reassembled, while the lip is partially chipped. Even the paint has mostly kept its original shiny appearance. The beige terracotta is covered with a red ochre (miltos) that imitates the color of Attic pottery. The white and golden yellow highlights are visible in the rendering of many details (the lyre, the headband, the fruits, etc.). The protome of the monster was molded, while the cylindrical neck of the container was made on a potter’s wheel. Rather than the quality of the image which was painted in the red figure technique on the neck, it is the excellent plasticity of the griffin’s head that makes this rhyton a remarkable work. One can appreciate the perfect proportions of the bird’s head (the griffin is a hybrid creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle), the beautiful modeling of the skull and the realism of the hooked beak, the anatomy of which is precisely indicated through several incisions which are visible between the nostrils. A top-knot crowns its head, while the ears are long and pointed. In Classical mythology, this beast is connected with two very important deities, Apollo and especially Dionysos, the god of wine and vine. The rhyton originally repeated the form of a bovid horn, pierced at its extremity with a small hole – easy to cover with a finger – which allowed the pouring of the liquid as from a small tap, in limited and precise quantities. In the Greek world, terracotta rhyta were often modeled in the shape of animals heads (felids, equids, ovids, caprids, canids, etc.), or of human or mythological figures (Africans, Herakles, satyrs), while the griffins and the ketoi (sea creatures) were mostly found among the monsters. These vessels which, as evidenced by our example, may achieve the highest artistic quality, sometimes lack an opening at the end of the protome (there is none here; in other cases, it was pierced in one of the nostrils rather than in the mouth), but they nevertheless served as drinking vessels and, mainly, as ritual vases. In Southern Italy, their association with the cults of Dionysos quickly turned them into funerary urns.

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The examples shaped like griffins form a rather small corpus and were mostly spread in Magna Graecia (Apulia). Following the classification proposed by H. Hoffman, this piece belongs to the first group of rhyta with a griffin’s protome (the early Group), because of its horizontal and straight shape, and of the powerful modeling of the head. Stylistically, the young male figure painted on the neck is characterized by finely represented features, despite his somewhat chubby shape and attitude. The subject is well attested in the iconographic repertoire of contemporary Italiote ceramics. The figure, whose identity remains unknown but who could be the deceased, is seated in a contemplative posture and turns backwards, surrounded by two large palmettes, he holds a lyre which he plays with a plectrum. Like for many rhyta and other small-sized vessels, the style of this scene can be related to the works of workshops as famous as those of the Patera Painter, the Ganymede Painter, the Cleveland or the Baltimore Painter, even if it cannot be clearly attributed to a specific personality. These workshops were active during the last decades of the 4th century in Apulia (Taranto).

PROVENANCE Ex-European private collection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY HOFFMAN H., Rhyta and Kantharoi in Greek Ritual, in Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 4, Malibu, 1989, pp. 131-166. HOFFMANN H., Tarentine Rhyta, Mainz/Rhine, 1966, pp. 70-80, pl. 44-47 and 56. For the attribution, see: TRENDALL A. D. - CAMBITOGLOU A., The Red-figured Vases of Apulia, Oxford, 1982, pp. 818ff, pp. 852 (small-sized vessels related to the works of the Patera and the Ganymede Painters).

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Red Figure Rhyton Group Of Class W (Sub-Median) Greek, Attic, 5th century B.C. Ceramic L: 21 cm

Molded in the form of a ramâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head, the muzzle black-glazed, with reserved areas along the grooves at the end of the nose, the nostrils and the mouth, the bulging eyes in added white, with thick molded lids, the fleece composed of a series of tiny raisedpellets, the underslung horns ribbed, the black-glazed ears emerging from within, wisps along the forehead in dilute glaze; the bowl with the goddess Aphrodite enthroned on a klismos, her right elbow leaning on the back of her chair, her left forearm resting on her leg, a dove standing on the chair beside her, her winged son Eros standing with a fan behind her, a draped female standing before her, wearing a rayed diadem, presenting her with an alabastron in her extended right hand, her drapery held up in her left, Ares further to the right, depicted nude but for a himation pinned at his neck, his dagger secured

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by a baldric, spears in his left hand, a draped female before him with a phiale in her extended left hand; palmettes on either side of the handle, with two dotted circles in between, the vessel perforated at the ramâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mouth.

PROVENANCE Private Collection. with Antiquarium, New York, 1992 (Myth & Majesty, Deities and Dignitaries of the Ancient World, no. 22). Lot Text Ex-collection of Mr. & Mrs. Charles W. Newhall, III.

BIBLIOGRAPHY MARGARET C. MILLER, Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity, Cambridge, 1997, plate 40.

Terracotta Alabastron Mycenaean, 14th century B.C. Ceramic D: 10.1 cm

The buff colored body decorated with orange painted motifs, filled wave motifs around the shoulder within infilling dots, the three ring handles painted orange with dots outlining their attachments the vertical sides of the vessel with wavy snake motifs and dots, the flat base with concentric circles, neck and rim missing.

PROVENANCE European private collection.

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Stamnos with Layered Painting Ascribed to the Workshop of the Antimenes Painter Greek (Attic), late 6th century B.C. Ceramic H: 24.2 cm

The vessel is complete and in very good condition, but has been reassembled. It was modeled in the traditional, red-brick colored Attic clay and decorated in the technique referred to as the Six’s technique, named after the Dutch scholar who first, in the late 19th century, brought together a number of Attic containers which were painted in this style. The decoration, which comprises only three figures here, was made in an orange-colored paint applied over the black glaze covering the entire stamnos. Like in the black-figure method, details of the anatomy and clothing are completed by incisions. This technique – which was invented in Athens almost simultaneously with the red-figure process, against which it could not compete – remained a bit marginal and its use limited mostly on small-

sized vessels: in the 5th century, the Six’s technique has had the most signifiant success outside the Greek mainland, since it was adopted by several Etruscan workshops in particular. Stamnos were rather rarely used by Greek potters and served, like kraters, for mixing the wine with the water that was intended for the guests at symposia. This example, the size of which is smaller than the average, has a pear-shaped and well proportioned body supported by a circular base; the neck is low, the lip is rounded. From a morphological point of view, it has a particularity that makes this piece extraordinary: it is not provided with the two usual horizontal handles, a distinctive feature of this form of vessels.

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This absence has moreover determined the way the artist presented his subject, since he had an ample circular area uninterrupted by formal elements: the decoration is organized in an apparently simple, but very remarkable scheme, since the three figures are equidistant from each other on the black surface of the stamnos, so that only one entire figure at a time occupies the visual field, the two others being invisible due to the curve of the wall.

This vessel, which can be dated to the very late 6th century, around 510 B.C., has been attributed by C. Isler-Kerenyi to the workshop of the Antimenes Painter, who was certainly one of the most prominent artists among the contemporary ceramics painters.

PROVENANCE

The myth of Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur is one of the most famous and widely represented legends in Classical mythology: a son of the Athenian King Aegeus, the young Theseus went to Crete to kill the Minotaur (a human monster with the head of a bull, born from the coupling of Poseidon and Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, the Cretan king) and free Attic from the obligation to send seven boys and seven girls as a sacrifice to the monster; with the help of Ariadne, one of Minos daughters, who gave him a ball of string so he could find his way out of the Labyrinth where the Minotaur was trapped, the hero performed his feat by stabbing his opponent with a sword. On our example, this episode is treated in a surprising way for that period: in fact, the scheme with the three figures, which was often seen in the 7th century, was virtually abandoned by the end of the Archaic period in favor of more narrative (some of the young victims most often attended to the fight) or more essential scenes, in which only the two fighters were painted.

Ex-Ferruccio Bolla Collection (1911-1984), Lugano, Switzerland; Ars Antiqua A.G., Lucerne, Catalogue 13, 7 December, 1957, no. 14; Münzen und Medaillen A.G., Basel, Auktion 70, 14 November, 1986, no. 206; Christie’s New York, 14 November 2000, lot 441; English private collection, 2001-2009.

EXHIBITED Stamnoi, J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1980.

PUBLISHED IN Ars Antiqua A.G., Lucerne, Catalogue 13, 7 December, 1957, pl. 1011, no. 14. ISLER-KERENYI C., Stamnoï, Lugano, 1976, pp. 29-35. ISLER-KERENYI C., Stamnoï, An Exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 1980, no. 7. Münzen und Medaillen A.G., Basel, Auktion 70, 14 November, 1986, no. 206.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The interpretation of the image is guaranteed not only by the iconography, but also by the inscriptions that are painted near the figures and indicate their name; the text above the hand of the hero is the dedication to a young Athenian ("+-("1([& 0"-%&).

MARANGOU L.I., Ancient Greek Art from the Collection of Stavros S. Niarchos, Athens, 1995, pp. 106-109, pp. 134-139. PHILIPPAKI B., The Attic Stamnos, Oxford, 1967, pp. 25-28.

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Belly-Handled Amphora Melian, Cycladic, Middle Geometric, ca. 750 B.C. Ceramic H: 68.8 cm

This type of amphora, impressive in scale, is a tour de force of the potterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skill. It demonstrates the wide-ranging influence that Athens and the Greek mainland exerted over the artistic styles and social customs of the Cycladic islands. 1 The shape of the Melian amphora, featuring elegantly curved, double-arc handles, was borrowed from the Attic repertoire. 2 The amphoraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s robust, ovoid body rises from a slightly flaring foot to shoulders that are emphasized with a decorative zone between the handles. The tall, elegant neck is slightly concave and ends at a low molding at the top, which anticipates the transition to a broad, horizontal lip. 3 The painted decoration, primarily on the neck and handle zone, reflects Attic models with regard to overall scheme and individual motifs. The use of compass-drawn concentric circles in panels at the handle zone is typical of the belly-handle amphora, but while Attic examples feature two sets of circles, versions from the Melian type use three sets. On this amphora the concentric circles are decorated at the center with a cross shape, and star rosettes fill corner spaces between the circles and lines forming the panels. The three panels are separated by a zone of stacked zigzags, rows of dots, and groups of triple lines. Above the handle zone, a band of double axes and vertical lines encircles the shoulder. The neck is decorated with a large meander, above which is a band of alternating, short vertical lines. Groups of reserved bands on the body, shoulder, and neck added a pleasing contrast between the lighter, decorative zones and darker, solidly painted areas.

Early Geometric it apparently was used exclusively for women of high social rank. The form reached its peak during the production of the Dipylon Master in the Late Geometric period, a time in which this famous Geometric artist produced his masterwork, the monumental amphora, Athens 804, which ranks among the finest examples of Geometric pottery known. Cultural contact between Athens and Melos undoubtedly brought the shape to the island during the Early Geometric period, when it became a specialized form of local production. It is unknown if the shape was used exclusively for the burials of women on the island, but being such a popular form produced by Melian potters, it is likely that these vessels were used for the cremation burial of both men and women. 4 The exportation of these amphorae from Melos to other Cycladic islands for use in cremation burials reinforces the view of a homogeneous Cycladic culture during the Middle Geometric period, and suggests that island inhabitants may have been influenced by the prestige associated with this type of amphora used by high-ranking Athenians.

For Cycladic Middle Geometric: Coldstream 1968, 167-68; Cold-

On the shape in Attic pottery: Coldstream 1977, 55, fig. 13b; Smith-

For similar amphorae: Langdon 1993, 217-218, no. 87; Munich

stream 1977, 90-92. son 1968, 77-116; Whitley 1991, 133-34. 6166, Coldstream 1968, pl. 34m, and Schweitzer 1969, pl. 79; Lou-

The belly-handle amphora was the standard cremation vessel for women during the Protogeometric period, but by the end of

vre A266, CVA Louvre 16, 8-9 with extensive bibliography, pl. 2.1-2. 4

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For Melian burials: Coldstream 1977, 91; BSA 2 (1895-1896) 70.

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Amphoriskos in the Form of an Almond Greek, Attic, Early 4th Century B.C. Ceramic H: 10.3 cm

The body of the amphoriskos (miniature amphora) is decorated with a scale pattern and added white dots to suggest the texture of the almond’s shell. The handles and mouth of the vase were dipped in black glaze. This type of amphoriskos “no doubt contained almond oil, still a valued cleanser and base for perfumed oils produced by the maceration of flowers” (J. D. Beazley). Beazley discussed this group of vessels in the

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Annual of the British School at Athens 41 (1941-45), 41. A similar almond amphoriskos was found at Mesembria, Thrace, with other vases dating to the early 4th century B.C.; see To Ergon (1979), pl. 20. PROVENANCE Ex-collection Louis-Gabriel Bellon (1819 ? 1899), France.

Terracotta Aryballos in the Shape of a Human Leg Greek, Early 6th century B.C. Ceramic H: 21.4 cm

With laced-up boot decorated above with a palmette flanked by volutes and incised broken meanders, the back of the calf with a dotted concentric circle motif, the upper edge with a meander above single rows of tongues and dots, tongues on the shoulder, zigzags on the edge of the mouth, radiating lotus buds

on the top; black glaze, applied red, and incision. Cf. British Museum, Greek terracottas, no. 1650. PROVENANCE European private collection.

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Black Figure Oinochoe with a Siren, Sphinxes, Lions, and Ibexes Attributed to the Painter of the Vatican Olpe, Inv. 73, Transitional Style between Protocorinthian and Corinthian Greek, Corinthian, 640-625 B.C. Ceramic H: 24.8 cm

The oinochoe has a broad flat base, domed body, and a high ribbon-shaped handle that extends above a trefoil lip. The body of the oinochoe is finely painted on the front, opposite the handle and below the pouring spout, with a centrally placed heraldic arrangement of a siren between two seated sphinxes. They are flanked by strutting lions and grazing wild goats or ibexes that extend around the figural band with black dot-rosettes as filling ornament. This colorful figural composition is accentuated by the use of red, which highlights the different parts of the animal’s bodies, horizontal lines between the decorative bands, and the alternating tongues on

the shoulder that encircle the mouth of the vessel. A band of white dot-rosettes on the shoulder and the underside of the trefoil mouth, three alternating rows of black dots, and rays extending upward from the base, all add to the rich decoration of the oinochoe.

PROVENANCE Acquired in the sale Munzen Mdallien (Steinenberg), Basel “Kunstwerke der Antike”, 13.12.1969, lot n°31. Galerie Maspero, Paris Collection Barlet, 1970.

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Corinthian Terracotta Olpe Corinthian, ca. 590-580 B.C. Ceramic H: 50 cm

The vessel is decorated on the lower part of the body with two registers of animals, among which are lions, lionesses, goats, an ibex, a deer, and a bird. Their anatomy is highlighted with a decorative use of added red and incised lines. Background filling ornament consists of blob-rosettes, dots, and irregularly shaped spots of black glaze. The upper part of the olpeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s body isdecorated with a band of alternationg red, black, and white tongues encircling the neck. Below this is a large band of a black scale design decorated with diagonal rows of alternating

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red and white dots. Unusual and somewhat rare is the depiction of a bull in added white in the black panel on the back of the olpe and beneath its quadruple reeded handle. Dots within circles decorate a band above and below the tongues and on the rotelles flanking the handle. PROVENANCE Personal collection of Mr. Koutoulakis who had acquired in the course of the 60s and who donated to his son in the late 80â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s.

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Greek Geometric Terracotta Olpe Workshop of the Dipylon Master 1 Attic, Late Geometric I, ca. 750-735 B.C. Ceramic H: 52.7 cm

Restored from fragments; decoration virtually complete with only minor losses; recent conservation treatment removed all modern inpainting. Both the exquisitely painted linear decoration and well-proportioned shape mark this pitcher-olpe as a masterwork of Greek Geometric art. The vase, with its gently inward curving neck set on a robust, ovoid body, rests on a simple ring foot. A high vertical handle, anchored by a strut connecting it to the neck of the vase, rises above the rim and then curves down to join it. The flat, outer part of the handle is decorated with the image of an undulating, dotted snake, undoubtedly of funerary significance. 2 The pitcher-olpe is completely covered by an intricate arrangement of lateral bands consisting of finely painted ornament. The neck and body feature a scheme of major and subordinate sequences of decorated zones. The three principle zones – encircling the vase at the middle of the neck, the upper shoulder, and the widest part of the body – consist respectively of a decorative program of metopes alternately painted with swastikas and rosettes, a simple meander, and a battlement meander, all of which are shaded with fine, hatched lines. These major zones are separated by lesser bands of ornament consisting, on the neck, of two continuous friezes of checkerboard design framed by bands of hatched zigzags. On the body of the vase, above and below the battlement meander, are painted two additional friezes of checkerboard design framed by bands

decorated with large, cross-hatched triangles alternating with small, pendant hatched triangles. Fillets formed by triple lines separate all the decorative bands, and, as a delightful anomaly to this rich format, a simple, horizontal row of dots is painted below the meander on the shoulder of the vase. The lowest part of the vase’s body is decorated with three, wide lateral lines in the area above the foot, which is painted solid in dark brown glaze. The monotone appearance of the vase is differentiated by the use of light brown, dilute glaze for details of hatching and subsidiary decoration, and darker brown glaze for the checkerboard pattern, outlining of major decoration, and the fillets of made up of triple lines. The finely painted design and potting of this pitcher-olpe point to its close relationship with other Geometric ceramics produced by the Workshop of the Dipylon Master, that is artists working in the atelier or influenced by this outstanding painter of Late Geometric pottery. The artist of this vase was influenced by the overall painted surface design and filling ornaments inspired by, and originating with, the Dipylon Master and his Workshop. Credited as inventor of the Late Geometric style, the Dipylon Master’s major efforts were devoted to the production of richly embellished, large-scale vessels produced for aristocratic patrons. These vases, some measuring over a meter in height, functioned as grave monuments. Many of them were found in the Athenian cemetery in the Kerameikos, located along the

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Sacred Way and just outside the Dipylon Gate, from which both the cemetery and painter take their name. Known for his largescale pottery as well as a new repertoire for figural decoration, the Dipylon Master’s handling of ornament is no less innovative. While Geometric decoration on pottery after 800 B.C. gradually developed into the painting of increasingly intricate Geometric designs, the innovations of the Dipylon Master broke new ground by decorating the entire vase with a harmonious program of ornament that accentuated, rather than obscured, the underlying vase shape. Additionally, the three focal areas of a large, closed vessel such as this pitcher-olpe – horizontal zones on the belly, shoulder, and center of the neck – are emphasized by linear design previously underutilized by Geometric artists. One of these main fields is often partitioned into decorated square panels recalling the metopes of a Doric temple, and separated by narrow, intervening triglyphs, suggested on painted pottery by three sets of vertical lines. These two decorative concepts of the Dipylon Workshop – the overall decoration of pottery and the use of the metope format – became popular and formed an important ingredient in the style of Attic pottery during the Late Geometric period. Being the earliest dating and finest examples of their type, several new vase shapes can also be attributed to the creativity of the Dipylon Painter and his Workshop, among which is the pitcher-olpe. 3 The influence of the Dipylon Master and his Workshop is apparent in the pleasing form and decorative scheme of this pither-olpe. Its painted decoration incorporates a particular neatness of linear drawing and Geometric ornament executed with fastidious care, which are hallmarks of the Dipylon Master and his Workshop production. 4 Additionally, the wealth of ornament does not obscure the underlying shape of the vase – the fine potting and profile of this pitcher-olpe preserves the graceful, rounded forms found in the finest work of that painter and his associates. The vase exhibits a number of decorative characteristics and details often found in the work of the Dipylon Master and Workshop, among which is the calculated use of the checkerboard pattern, simple meander, and battlement meander, all of which are neatly drawn and proportioned on a vase surface that has been carefully measured out. Some of

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the closest parallels to the painted decorative program on this pitcher-olpe are found on the amphora in Munich, 5 and for the metope scheme on the neck of the vase, the high-rimmed bowl from the Kerameikos. 6

4 5

For the Dipylon Master and the Dipylon Workshop: J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London, 1977), 110-14; J. N. Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery (London, 1968), 29-41, pl. 6-8; B. Schweitzer, Greek Geometric Art (New York, 1969), 38-45; J. Davison, Attic Geometric Workshops (New Haven, 1961), 21-40, figs. 1-9 (Dipylon Master), figs. 10-20 (Dipylon Workshop). A well-documented funerary and chthonic symbol in the prehistoric Aegean world, the snake reappears in Attic Geometric art in the mideight century production of the Dipylon Workshop. A pair of dotted snakes, similar to the example on the handle of this pitcher-olpe, decorates the fragment of a neck amphora (Agora P7024) by the Dipylon Master, for which see: E Brann, Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery (Princeton, 1962), 60, pl. 14, no. 246. For the funerary symbolism of snakes: R. Hampe, Ein frühattischer Grabfund (Mainz, 1960), 58. Pitcher-olpe by the Dipylon Master, Athens 812: Coldstream 1968, 30, pl. 7e; pitcher-olpe shape: Davison 1961, 12; for a pitcher-olpe of lesser quality than the one considered here, but having a comparative decorative program: P. Kahane, “Entwicklungsphasen der AttischGeometrischen Keramik,” American Journal of Archaeology 44 (October – December 1940): 479, pl. 27.1. The size of the pitcher-olpe would have made it impractical for everyday use as a container to contain or pour liquids. Such vases would have functioned as objects of prestige for display or deposit in the tomb during funerary rites, and in some cases, as grave markers or monuments. Other new shapes from the Dipylon Master and Workshop are the giant oinochoe and the high-rimmed bowl: Coldstream 1968, 34-35. For the Dipylon Master’s linear decoration: Coldstream 1968, 35-37. Munich 6080, Workshop of the Dipylon Master: CVA Germany 9, 10-11, pl. 106.1-2, also depicting dotted snakes on the handles; Davison 1961, fig. 5; J. Boardman, Early Greek Vase Painting (London, 1998), 26, fig. 48. Kerameikos 815: Coldstream 1968, pl. 10h.

Terracotta Plemochoe Greek, Attic, 2nd half of the 6th century B.C. Ceramic H: 12.5 cm - D: 22 cm

The plemochoe is a container for perfumed unguents. This example has a particularly well-fired black glossy surface. Usually with a cover, the plemochoe is decorated with a design of painted tongues that encircle the mouth of the vase.

PROVENANCE European private collection.

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Lidded Pyxis Decorated with a Team of Horses Geometric Greek (Attic), first half of the 8th century B.C. (ca. 800 - 750) Ceramic H: 21 cm - D: 26 cm

The vessel is whole but reassembled and shows a few minor chips; some fragments are repaired. The terracotta is beige, while the color of the paint varies from brick red, for the lid, to the darker brown of the body. The lid was attached to the box with a string that passed through the pairs of holes pierced in its rim and through the one which is modeled in the inside of the lip. Unfortunately, a break, now restored, does not allow us to surely determine if the holes exactly matched.

probably ranges between 780 and 750. Indeed, the entirely black areas, characteristic of the Early Geometric (Géométrique Ancien, Frühgeometrisch), are now replaced by a series of lines and decorated friezes, very precisely painted and well organized, covering the entire surface of the ceramics like a thick mat of geometric signs: for this reason, this stylistic phase is sometimes named Middle Geometric II (Géométrique Mûr, Reifgeometrisch).

The vase is circular with a flat bottom and a curved wall; it is surmounted by a disc lid which fits into the upper edge. Two small statuettes of horses crown the center of the lid, which is also provided with a knob/handle placed under the belly of the animal.

As indicated by the horses statuettes attached to the lid, this form is mostly seen in male funeral furniture, even if, during the 8th century, its frequency increases in female tombs too. These quadruped figurines also give us important indications on the social status of the deceased, who certainly belonged to a class of warriors wealthy enough to guarantee the maintenance of one or more horses.

As required by the artistic style of the time, the decoration is exclusively linear: on the body, horizontal lines separate friezes of dots, of wolf’s teeth and the large meander – the most significant motif of the Geometric style, particularly in Attic – which uninterruptedly covers the whole upper body. On the lid, concentric lines alternate with dots and lozenges, while the horses are entirely painted, except for a clear band with circles marking their chest. Under the bottom are circles, dots, and a rosette with leaves and swastikas.

PROVENANCE Ex-Swiss private collection, 1960’s-1980’s.

PUBLISHED IN Münzen und Medaillen AG, Basel, Auktion XI, 23-24.1.1953, n. 305, pl. XI.

The pyxis is an emblematic shape of the Geometric repertory: present from the Early Geometric in its spherical and then, pointed variation, its typology enhances between the late 9th and the early 8th century B.C. of the flat form, as illustrated by our example. The chronology of this piece, dictated by the stylistic development of decoration more than by the details of the shape,

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BIBLIOGRAPHY BOHEN B., Die geometrischen Pyxiden (Kerameikos XIII), Berlin, 1988, pp. 96ff., n. 176ff., pl. 19ff. COLDSTREAM J.N., Greek Geometric Pottery, London, 1968, p. 17, p. 23. KÜBLER K., Die Nekropolen des 10. bis 8. Jahrhunderts (Kerameikos V), Berlin, 1954, pp. 120ff., pl. 54-60.

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Plastic Vase in the Form of a Phallus Greek, Archaic, ca. 6th century B.C. Ceramic H : 7.6 cm

The vases shaped in the form of hand-shaped scrotums with a small penis are called aidoion, according to the ancient Greek terminology: as aryballes alabastra or within the arena and the gymnasium, they were used to contain and transport fragrant oils used by athletes. The upper edge of the container, flat and horizontal, has triangular ends, a small circular and flat neck is fixed in its center. The painted decoration in brown on the bright red clay, reproduced in the abstract (small dots, painted surfaces, straight lines) hair of the male pubic area. This piece is remarkable not only for its excellent state of preservation but also for the presence of little frivolous swirls drawn on the penis itself. The vase-shaped plastic phallus is well attested in the archaic Greek world: probably originating from Rhodes, they were quickly imitated by other shops, especially in Corinth. Their exact meaning is uncertain, but archaeologists usually attribute their apotropaic value, not to mention the fun that could cause this form, as evidenced by the frequent use of male genitalia

for decorating other singular objects (rod for cutting used for banquets, tintinabula, amulets, etc..).

PROVENANCE Ex-American Private Collection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY CHAMAY J. - MAIER J.-L., Céramiques corinthiennes, Collection du docteur J. Lauffenburger, Genève, 1984, p. 146. DUCAT J., Les vases plastiques rhodiens archaïques en terre cuite, Paris, 1966, pp. 146-148, pl. 22. JOHANSEN F., Greece in the Archaic Period (Catalogue Ny Karlsberg Glyptotek), Copenhague, 1994, pp. 102-103, n. 48. JOHNS C., Sex or Symbol? Erotic Images of Greece and Rome, Londres, 1982, pp. 92-93, n. 74. MAXIMOVA M.I., Les vases plastiques dans l’Antiquité (Epoque archaïque), Paris, 1927, pp. 184-186, pl. 39, n. 144.

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Buff-Ware Goblet Mycenaean, Late Bronze Age III, early 13rd century B.C. Ceramic H: 19.4 cm

Decorated with twelve whorl-shells with slender stem flaring into a deep conical bowl with slightly everted rim, the handles each with diminutive thumbrests, the exterior decorated on each side with six whorl-shells above encircling lines, encircling bands on the stem and foot.

given to collector but no direct contact allowed), acquired in Switzerland in 1975; further provenance: EX .MM., Basel sale 10, lot no 391, 22, 23.

PROVENANCE

Cf. P. Mountjoy, Mycenaean Pottery: An Introduction, Oxford, 1993, p. 86, no. 305 (LH III B).

PUBLISHED IN Meisterwerke Griechischer Kunst ,Karl Schefold,p119 plate 26.

CATALOGUE NOTE Ex-Japanese private collection (Mr. Chikara Watanabe, name can be

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Aidoion Aryballos East Greek, circa 550 B.C. Ceramic H: 11.4 cm

Red-brown clay was molded to form an anatomically correct penis and scrotum, with a section above to suggest the triangular shape of pubic hair. Two holes that pierce this section were likely fitted with a long thin piece of leather, like a thong, for suspension from a hook or for ease in handling if it was wrapped around one’s wrist. The scrotum shape functioned as a container for the oil and the spout and lip of the vessel are located at the back of the aidoion.

of the human anatomy. Plastic vases were popular throughout lands along the Mediterranean shores and Rhodes was a major center of production in the east. Such vessels were exported throughout the Greek world, and some were likely filled with rare or expensive scented oils that also were produced in the east.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Plastic vases produced in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. took many different forms, one of the most fascinating being aidoion vases, those made in the shape of male genitalia. Certainly plastic vases of this shape could have been appreciated for the charming humor associated with this important part

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For examples of similar aidoion vases see: HEMINGWAY S., “Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1998-1999,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Vol. 57, no. 2, p. 7 ORTIZ G., The George Ortiz Collection: In Pursuit of the Absolute (Berne 1996), no. 96.

Pottery Vase Cypriot, 7th century B.C. Ceramic H: 31 cm

A Cypriot barrel-shaped pottery vase with two-color design. Oval shaped drum, cylindrical neck and everted lip, decorated in red and brownbands encircling linear vertical walls and defining borders of three concentric circles. Linear patterns around the neck.

PROVENANCE Ex-Gertrude Dubi-Mueller Private Collection.

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Painted Pottery Oinochoe Corinthian, 650-625 B.C. Ceramic H: 13 cm

Conical shape(lagynos), the body with an animal frieze including a lion, a bull, a goat, and a hare.The neck with geometric designs including vertical squiggles.

PROVENANCE European private collection.

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Amphoriskos in the Form of a Cockle Shell Greek, Attic, Late 5th or Early 4th Century B.C. Ceramic H: 7.5 cm

The natural form of a cockle shell has been skillfully adapted to the potterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s art and suits the purpose for which the ceramic vessel was intended, likely a container for perfumed oil. Narrow bands of black glaze and added white decorate the crenellated surface of the pottery shell, both shape and decoration accurately producing the banded decoration found on actual shells. The handles and the mouth of the vase were dipped in black glaze. J. D. Beazley provides a list of such vases and men-

tions that pairs of real cockle shells have been found fitted with bronze hinges and rings to serve as boxes: Annual of the British School at Athens (1941-45), 14, note 3.

PROVENANCE Ex-collection Louis-Gabriel Bellon (1819 ? 1899), France.

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Black Glaze Krater Greek, Attic, 4th century B.C. H: 52 cm

By the fourth century B.C. the lustrous, almost vitreous sheen of black-glaze Attic pottery created a background that provided for the trend toward a minimalist approach for the decoration of Greek vases. This krater is an exquisite, classic example of that period, when the latest phase of the “Rich Style” of Greek potters produced ceramics having restrained yet elegant profiles – a time when forms tended to be crisp, clear-cut, and metallic. A striving for elegance in the decorative arts also influenced Greek potters who followed this impulse to create vases with a progressively greater verticality. The curvilinear profile of the vase flows with a new elegance, and the ribbed body of the lower part of the krater intensifies this curvilinear rhythm. As evident on this krater, a novel form of decoration created

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with added clay was developed. After the glaze was applied to the surface, the potter of this vase embellished it with a wreath of myrtle leaves and flowers that encircle the vessel, and the head of an applied figure provides a focal point on the side of the vase. Highly modeled lion heads, with richly delineated manes, form the terminus of the handles. The subtle and understated elegance of decoration, combined with extremely fine potting and deep, lustrous black-glaze, places this krater among the finest examples of the potter’s art produced during that period. PROVENANCE European private collection.

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White Ground Upper Portion of a Head-Vase Attributed to the Syriskos Painter Greek, Attic, ca. 490-480 B.C. Ceramic H: 7 cm

These fragments from a head-vase include the sides, rim, and mouth of the uppermost part of the vessel. They are decorated with figures drawn in outline, in both dilute and black glaze, which creates a pleasing and lively visual composition. At the left a youth, beardless and with short hair, is dressed in a dark bordered and fringed himation. He holds a staff in his right hand and faces a woman who is depicted as moving to the right. She wears a sakkos head covering and is dressed in a long, finely pleated chiton, with a himation draped over her right shoulder. In her left hand she holds out a skyphos to another woman, while holding an oinochoe, painted in solid black, in her right hand. The second woman holds her right hand up toward her face. She also wears a sakkos, a long, finely pleated chiton, and a himation draped over her left shoulder. The other side of the vessel shows the upper part of a tree near a woman wearing a sakkos, pleated chiton, with a himation wrapped around her waist and flowing across her lap and legs. She is seated upon a stool and holds out an unbound leafy wreathe to a youth standing before her. A black bird stands in a cage between the two figures. The beardless and short haired youth leans upon a

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staff and is dressed in a dark bordered and fringed himation. The inscription, KALOS, meaning beautiful, is painted five times in the background between the figures in this delightful scene of social interaction. The Syriskos Painter is named after the potter, Syriskos, meaning “little Syrian.” He also produced a large number of white ground alabastra (containers for perfumed oil). A painter who spanned the transitional period between the late Archaic and early Classical, he was called the “brother” of the Copenhagen Painter by J. D. Beazley, who sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between them. New evidence has established that the Copenhagen Painter was, in fact, the potter Syriskos. For a comparison to these fragments, see the Syriskos Painter’s white ground head-kantharos in Boston (ARV 265.78, inv. no. 98.928).

PROVENANCE European private collection.

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Black-Glaze Amphoriskos Greek, Attic, Early 4th century B.C. Ceramic H: 11 cm

The black glaze amphoriskos, likely a container for perfumed oil, is embellished around the shoulder with the stamped decoration of a tongue design. The body of the vessel is decorated with a band of small palmettes, palmettes joined by swags of up-curving lines, three incised lines, and a row of downward facing palmettes. The highly purified clay slip coating of blackglaze vases, which produced the vitreous black sheen upon firing in the kiln, can be considered equal to some of the best

work of Greek ceramic art. Along with the embellishment of stamped designs, the lustrous, highly purified clay slip covering such vases created a valuable decorative effect.

PROVENANCE Ex-collection Louis-Gabriel Bellon (1819 ? 1899), France.

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An Aryballos in the form of a Hare Greek (Corinth), circa 6th century B.C. Plastic L: 25.5 cm

This aryballos is in the form of an outstretched hare and depicted hanging as if dead, with head thrown back, its forelegs and hind legs extended, and toes pointed. The inside of the ears, tail, facial features, and fur are rendered in black on a beautiful whitish background, which is quite rare in comparison to the more common brown background examples. The quality of this sculpture is exceedingly graceful and refined, with undulating curves and realistic features, lending an organic quality to the entire figure. PROVENANCE Private Collection UK.

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