Eastern Greek Pottery - Red-Figure Ware: Amphora

Inv. No.: 63.001
Provenance: Attica
Date: c. 480 BC
Height: 321mm
Diameter: 193mm
 
This small red-figure neck-amphora has a two tiered lip, the upper tier having a cyma recta shape while the lower section has a rounded profile. The neck meets the shoulder of the vase at an angle which is emphasised by a ridge. The rounded body of the vase tapers gently to a foot which has two steps; the bottom step has a torus or slightly convex shape. The strap handles have a central ridge; they pass up the side of the neck and curve around and down to the shoulder of the vase. The shape is known as "Nolan" from the town of Nola in Italy where many of these vases have been found. The use of a single red figure to decorate the each side of the vase is typical of this shape. On this example Dionysus seemingly offers a kantharos to the draped youth on the reverse side of the vase. The colours are red and black. Part of the lower area of the body and the top of the foot have fired red rather than black. The vase has been reconstructed from many pieces and is chipped around the rim.

Function:
Amphorae were used as containers, especially for wine or oil.

Manufacture:
The body of the vase would have been thrown and shaped on the potter wheel in one piece and turned when leather hard with the foot being added later. The handles would have been shaped by hand and joined to the vase using slip.

Decoration:

1. The outside of the vase is shiny black except for the two red figures, each placed on a red ground line, and the reserved areas: the top of the lip and the outside of the bottom step of the foot. The pot has fired red on part of the lower area of the body and on the top of the foot. Black extends down to about 4 cm below the lip on the inside of the mouth of the vase.
2. Side A: the figure of Dionysus is shown in profile, looking right, holding a kantharos in his right hand. A bare forked stick can be seen, apparently being held in his left hand although this is not visible. He wears a garland on his head and has a pointed beard and long hair with three ringlets. He is dressed in a chiton and himation. The sketchy internal details of drapery and anatomy are added in both dilute glaze and relief lines.
3. Side B: one of the Harrow Painter stock figures, a draped youth shown in profile facing right. His hands are covered by his cloak forming two distinct bulges just below his chin and at waist level. Some smudges of purple are evident.

Painter:
Attributed to the Harrow Painter. J. D. Beazley included this vase in the oeuvre of the Harrow Painter, a red-figure vase painter he described as "one of the minor artists of the ripe archaic period." He decorated mainly column craters, neck amphorae and oinochoai and worked from around 480 until the 460s BC. His figures and drapery patterns show the influence of the Berlin, but he is a lesser artist with a freer and often more careless style. He decorated neck amphorae with ridged handles late in his career.

Bibliography:
Beazley, J. D., Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, second edition, Oxford, Clarendon, 1963, I, 272-278, II, 1641, 1705.

Beazley, J. D., Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, second edition, Oxford, Clarendon, 1971, 353-354, 511 (63.1 is listed on p. 354 as 20 bis.)

Beazley, J. D., "Two Vases in Harrow", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 36 (1916), 123-133.

Carpenter, T. H., Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2 & Paralipomena, second edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, 206-207.

Kanowski, M.G., The Antiquities Collection, catalogue, Department of Classics and Ancient History, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 1978, 5.

Padgett, M., "The Harrow Painter, with a Note on the Geras Painter", http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Secondary/Painter_Essays/Harrow_toc.html.

Robertson, M., The Art of Vase-painting in Classical Athens, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Comparanda:
Barbieri, G., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Italia 64, Villa Giulia 4 (1991), Tavola 37, 1 (similar youth).

Beazley, J. D., "Two Vases in Harrow", The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 36 (1916), Fig. 6, p. 133 and Plate VII, 2 (name vase).

Lamb, W., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 6, Cambridge 1 (1930), Plate 32, 1 a and b (by the Painter of the Berlin Perseus).

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (1986), III, 2, Dionysos 254, 283, 604.

Shapiro, H. A., Art, Myth, and Culture: Greek Vases from Southern Collections, New Orleans Museum of Art, Tulane University, 1981, No. 8, Side B (Harrow Painter - similar draped youth), No. 10, Side A (Harrow Painter - Dionysus pursuing Ariadne).