Attic Pottery - White Ground Ware: Lekythos

Inv. No.: 65.003
Provenance: Attica
Date: second half of 5th century BC
Height: 242mm
Diameter: 75mm
 
This white ground funerary lekythos is the standard cylinder shape with an echinus mouth, narrow neck, flat shoulder and straight sided body which gently curves at the bottom to meet the disc foot. The flat strap handle passes up the side of the neck and down on to the edge of the shoulder. The main figured scene occupies the body of the vase; it shows a girl carrying a basket of ribbons or fillets approaching a simple funerary stele from the left and the vestiges of another figure to the right of the stele. The figures are painted in matt pink or red-brown on a white ground. Other colours are black and the red of the clay. Much of the painted decoration has faded due to the lack of durability of the colours and of the white ground which tends to flake. The lip is chipped near the handle.

Function:
White ground lekythoi with funerary scenes were made for funerary purposes, to hold oil for pouring libations or to be used as funerary offerings.

Manufacture:
This vase would have been thrown on the wheel in sections with the neck probably thrown from a coil of clay placed on the shoulder. The handle would have been shaped by hand, and the mouth, neck and foot turned on the wheel at the leather-hard stage.

Decoration:

1. The mouth and neck are streaky black on the outside with red showing through and the top of the lip is reserved.
2. The strap handle is painted black on its outer surface with some black on the inner surface as well.
3. The shoulder has matt pink scrolls on a white ground.
4. There is a running meander pattern in pink just below the shoulder, above the figured scene on the body of the vase. A girl, shown in profile, facing right, dressed in a red brown garment approaches a simple stele on a base with two straight sided steps. She holds a basket of fillets on her head with her left hand while her right hand is stretched out towards the stele. To the right of the stele the feet, hair and outstretched hands of another female (?) figure can be discerned.
5. There is a reserved line below the figured scene and the lower part of the body of the vase where it curves down to the foot is painted streaky black with some red showing through in places.
6. The top of the foot is black with some streaky red; there are two reserved rings where the foot joins the body and the outside of the disc is reserved with an incised ring around its top.

Painter:
Attributed to the Group of the Bird Painter. This vase was described by J. D. Beazley as being in the "manner of the Bird Painter." The Bird Painter was one of Beazley "classic painters of white lekythoi", producing standard funerary vases, usually hastily decorated with small and delicately painted figures, most often using matt outlines. The scenes usually consist of two figures either side of a funerary stele. The overall emotional effect is usually quiet and restrained. The Bird Painter was influenced by the Achilles Painter. Beazley used the term "manner" to indicate that the style was similar to that of a named painter.

Bibliography:
Beazley, J. D., Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, second edition, Oxford, Clarendon, 1963, II, 1232-1235, 1687 (65.3 is listed as No. 13, p. 1234).

Beazley, J. D., Attic White Lekythoi, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1938.

Beazley, J. D., Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, second edition, Oxford, Clarendon, 1971, 467.

Carpenter, T. H., Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2 & Paralipomena, second edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, 352.

Kanowski, M.G., The Antiquities Collection, catalogue, Department of Classics and Ancient History, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 1978, 13.

Kurtz, D. C., Athenian White Lekythoi: Patterns and Painters, Oxford, Clarendon, 1975.

Kurtz, D. C. and J. Boardman, Greek Burial Customs, London, Thames and Hudson, 1971.

Comparanda:
Boulter, C. G., "Graves in Lenormant Street, Athens", Hesperia, 32 (1963), Plate 38, D2, Plate 40, D1, Plate 41, D1 and D2.

Hoppin, J. C. and A. Galatin, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA, 1 (1926), Hoppin Plate 19, 4 and 6, Plate 20, 2-3.

Kurtz, D. C., Athenian White Lekythoi: Patterns and Painters, Oxford, Clarendon, 1975, Plate 39, 3 and 4, Plate 40, 2.

Marstrander, S. and A. Seeberg, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Norway 1 (1964), Plate 46, 1.

Moignard, E., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 16, Edinburgh 1 (1989), Plate 30, 7-9.