Campanian Pottery - Red-Figure Ware: Bail Amphora

Inv. No.: 88.010
Provenance: Campania
Date: 4th century BC
Height: 364mm
Diameter: 115mm
 
Bicentennial gift of an anonymous donor.

This vase has an ovoid body, a rounded shoulder and a tall, cylindrical neck with a slightly concave profile. The mouth is flaring ending in a lip with a convex upper surface. The handle, round in cross section, arches across the opening at the top and attaches to the top of the lip on each side. The top of the arch is thickened to form a lug with a hole drilled in it. The foot has a short flaring stem and a disc base that is convex in profile and grooved on its upper surface. The vase is mainly black (or black that has fired red on much of the vase) with red-figure decoration plus added white on the body. The following areas are reserved: the interior, the neck and shoulder, a narrow band below the red-figure scenes, the very bottom of the body, the stem and the upper surface of the disc on the foot. The clay is a light orange colour. Black geometric patterns decorate the neck and shoulder. The bail amphora is a typical Campanian vase shape. The drapery and comb palmettes are similar to the work of painters of the first stage of Cumaean pottery or Cumae A. There is some abrasion on this vase, small chips are missing and white mottling is present, especially on the lower part of the body.

Function:
A storage container for wine or oil; the lug on the handle could be used for suspending the vase.

Manufacture:
A wheel-thrown and turned vase with a hand-made handle.

Decoration:

• The top of the lip and the handle are painted black. The neck and shoulder are reserved with long vertical black tongues on the neck and short black rays painted on the shoulder. Some of the black has fired red.
• Side A: the body of the vase is decorated with the profile figure of a woman, nude except for drapery covering her hips. She faces right and leans forward with her left leg raised, holding out a white phiale in her left hand. The object she holds in her right hand is very worn, but it may be a white garland. She wears a white kekryphalos on her head and white jewellery: an earring, a necklace around her neck and also around the top of her left arm and three bracelets on each wrist.
• Side B: a standing draped figure is shown in profile facing left and wearing a kekryphalos.
• Between the figures, on each side of the body of the vase, is a large red palmette with side scrolls plus small comb palmettes. The comb palmette is replaced by a three lobed leaf on the left side of the figure on Side A.
• The red-figure scenes are set on a red line beneath which is a reserved band. There is a wide painted band on the lower part of the body (it is meant to be black, but has fired red) and a narrow reserved band at the very bottom of the body.
• The top of the foot is also reserved and the outer edge of the disc base is red.

  Bibliography:
  Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989, 167-171.

  Trendall, A. D., The Red-figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1967, Volume I, 225 (the bail amphora), 400-521.

  Trendall, A. D., The Red-figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily: First Supplement, University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, Bulletin Supplement No. 26, 1970, 80-91.

  Trendall, A. D., The Red-figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily: Second Supplement, University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, Bulletin Supplement No. 31, 1973, 228-244.

  Comparanda:
  Smith, A. H. and F. N. Pryce, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 2, British Museum 2 (1926), IV Ea, Plate 10, 6 a-b, 8 a-b (Campanian bail amphorae).

  Trendall, A. D., Greek Vases in the Logie Collection, Christchurch, University of Canterbury, 1971, Plate XXXIII, c-d (bail amphora by the APZ Painter).

  Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989, Fig. 327 (drapery and comb palmettes on a bell crater by the Boston Ready Painter).

  Trendall, A. D., The Red-figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1967, Volume II, Plates 175-204, especially 179, 1 (florals on a bail amphora by the CA Painter), 182, 2 (female figure by the CA Painter), 201, 2, 4 and 6 (drapery by the Boston Ready Painter).