Apulian Pottery - Red-Figure Ware: Volute Crater

Inv. No.: 87.011
Provenance: Apulia
Date: c. 340-330 BC
 
A very large volute crater with an ovoid body tapering to a flared foot that is set off from the body by a groove. The foot ends in a wide base that has a ridge above a bottom disc with a convex profile. The vase has a flat shoulder and a wide neck with a slightly concave profile and two moulded ridges at the top. The mouth is flaring in shape; it has a flat top and a flanged and down-turned lip. The handles pass from the shoulder to the top of the lip. Two rounded columns form the base of each handle. They then join together and connect with a flanged strap ending in a volute. The volutes are decorated with moulded frontal faces on each side. Four curved swan heads are set on the shoulder, one beside each handle base. The vase is black inside the neck and on the exterior, except for the red-figure scenes, the extensive floral and geometric decoration and the following red reserved sections: the bottom edge of the foot, the groove between the base and the body and the top and underside of the lip. Black, added white and yellow plus red wash are used for the decorations. The red-figure scenes are typical funerary images with the naiskos scene on Side A depicting Hades and a judge of the Underworld. The vase has been re-assembled from numerous fragments with some infilling.

Function:
Craters were used for mixing wine and water at symposia, but this type was made for funerary purposes.

Manufacture:
A wheel-thrown vase, thrown in sections, with handles that have been made by hand. There are also moulded elements used as decoration. The swan heads were shaped by hand.

Decoration:

1. Below each handle on the body of the vase is an elaborate red palmette pattern.
2. Side A: the volute handles are decorated with moulded medusa heads painted in white and yellow with yellow-brown details.
3. The edge of the lip flange is painted black, the moulded down-turned section is decorated with a dotted ovolo pattern in black and there is a reverse wave pattern, black upright, between black lines above the neck.
4. The neck has the following sequence: a reserved band, a band of black with white dots, a rosette plus three dot pattern in red, white and yellow on black on the moulded section, a reserved band, and a large black band decorated with a three quarter head looking right set in an elaborate red and white scroll and floral pattern. The head is painted in white with black features and hair details in yellow.
5. The reserved shoulder is decorated with a wide band of black tongue pattern and a narrow band of black dotted ovolo pattern on its outer edge.
6. On the body of the vase is a mourning scene with four figures bringing offerings surrounding a central ionic naiskos. The naiskos has palmette acroteria, a medusa head in the pediment space and a base decorated with rosette pattern set between two bands of black and white reverse wave pattern; the black pattern is upright above and inverted below. Within the frame of the shrine, on the left, is a blindfolded, naked standing male figure (a judge of the Underworld) painted in white, facing right, with a himation draped around his hips and over his left arm. He leans on a red stick and holds out a phiale with his left hand. There is a ball (?) behind his head. Only part of the head and feet of a white seated figure (Hades?) on the right remain. A shield hangs in the right top corner of the naiskos, in the centre at the top are the wheels of Hades and part of a fillet hangs behind the seated figure. There are two symmetrically placed figures on each side of the naiskos. On the left at the top is a seated male nude whose body faces left while his head looks right. He holds a spear in his right hand and has a shield in his left hand. A fillet and a helmet (pilos) hang in the field either side of the spear on the left of his head and there is a rosette on the right. Below, on the left, is a crouching woman dressed in a peplos, holding out an open box with her left hand and an alabastron with her right hand. A fillet hangs in the field below and a phiale lies beneath her feet. On the right side of the naiskos at the top is a seated draped woman in three-quarter view, facing left, holding a open box in her right hand and a "xylophone" in her left hand. She wears a white necklace. A white fillet hangs behind her and there are the remains of a fillet in front of her. Below her is a naked standing youth who faces left with a cloak hanging over his left arm. He holds an upright laurel branch with white berries in his left hand and perhaps a phiale (most of it is missing) in his right hand with a chain of rosettes below. There are rosettes in the field. Dotted white lines are used for the ground and white is used for the architecture and details on the figures and the offerings. Both men wear white headbands and both women have hair bound in a kekryphalos and wear a white diadem.
7. Beneath the naiskos scene is a band of black meander with the occasional dotted cross. This continues around the vase, but parts are missing.
8. Side B: the moulded faces on the volutes are red with black details.
9. The lip decoration at the top is the same as Side A. Above the neck there is an inverted black wave pattern with dots.
10. The upper part of the neck is decorated with a band of red laurel between red lines and the lower part with red palmettes. Most of this section is missing.
11. The shoulder patterns are the same as Side A.
12. The main scene consists of four figures framing a red stele draped with white and black fillets. The plinth is decorated with white scrolls, but most of the stele is missing. All figures are shown in three-quarter view. At the top on the right is a woman dressed in a peplos, seated on a folded garment. She faces left and holds a box in her right hand and a fan in her left. A fillet hangs in the field in front of her. Below her is a nude male with a white band in his hair and drapery rolled around his left arm. He holds a berried laurel spray in his left hand and a garland in his right. He leans to the left, his right leg raised and bent. At the top on the left is a seated draped female figure whose top half is missing. Below her is a nude male with a headband who strides to the right. He holds a garland in his right hand and a phiale in his left. Drapery hangs over his left arm. There is a phiale in the field behind his head and rosettes are dotted about.

Painter:
Attributed to the Painter of Copenhagen 4223. The Painter of Copenhagen 4223 was a painter of large vases and a precursor of the Darius Painter.

Bibliography:
Hannah, R., "The Persia-Apulia Link: A Vase in Melbourne", EYMOYS IA: Ceramic and Iconographic Studies in Honour of Alexander Cambitoglou, ed. J.-P. Descoeudres, Sydney, Mediterranean Archaeology Supplement 1, 1990, 241-245.

Noble, J. V., "The Techniques of Painted South Italian Pottery", The Art of South Italy: Vases from Magna Graecia, eds. M. E. Mayo and K. Hamma, Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1982, 37-47.

Smith, H. R. W., Funerary Symbolism in Apulian Vase-Painting, ed. J. K. Anderson, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1976.

Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989, 86-87, 266-268.

Trendall, A. D. and A. Cambitoglou, First Supplement to the Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, University of London, Institute of Classical Studies (Bulletin Supplement No. 42), 1983, 62-67.

Trendall, A. D. and A. Cambitoglou, The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Oxford, Clarendon, 1982, II, 454-470.

Comparanda:
Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989, 86-87, Figs. 187-189, Fig. 204 (Underworld scene on volute crater), Fig. 209 (the Underworld on a volute crater by the Underworld Painter).

Trendall, A. D. and A. Cambitoglou, First Supplement to the Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, University of London, Institute of Classical Studies (Bulletin Supplement No. 42), 1983, Plate VII, 3-4.

Trendall, A. D. and A. Cambitoglou, The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Oxford, Clarendon, 1982, II, Plate 165, 3-4 (volute crater by the Painter of Copenhagen 4223).

Wisseman, S. U., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA 24, Illinois 1 (1989), Plates 36-42 (volute crater with Underworld scene).