Apulian Pottery - Red-Figure Ware: Red-figure Plate
Inv. No.: 89.001
Provenance: Apulia
Date: 4th century BC
Height: 50mm
Diameter: 235mm
A large footed plate with a shallow, slightly concave floor and an offset rim. The foot has low, grooved stem and a disc base with a deep central groove. The underside is painted black except for the stem of the foot and the underside of the rim. The black has fired red on one side. The interior is decorated with a central profile female head and bands of floral and geometric decoration, a very common decorative scheme in Apulian vase painting. The heads perhaps derive originally from depictions of Aphrodite or Persephone. The main colours are black and the orange-red of the clay plus red wash and added white and yellow. The vase is in very good condition.
Function:
A serving plate, used for domestic or funerary purposes.
Manufacture:
A wheel-thrown vase.
Decoration:
- The upper surface of the reserved rim is decorated with short black vertical lines.
- Next there is a band of dotted white lotus bud on black (fired partly red) with a central incised orange stem, a reserved ring, a black (and reddish) ring, a band of reverse wave pattern and a reserved ring. These bands surround a central black tondo decorated with a red-figure female profile head, facing left. She wears a saccos painted with the following decorative bands (from left to right): a wavy black line, a thick wavy white line with white dots below (only on the lower part of the saccos), yellow/white crosses on black, a wavy black line, white dots, black crosses, yellow/white crosses, and short black lines. The saccos is tied at the top in a bow with a white ribbon. In front of the face is a phiale with yellow/white details plus three white dots. Below the chin is a yellow/white ring and behind the head is a red plus added white floral pattern. There is a yellow/white filling ornament (ivy leaf?) at the top to the left and another (white) to the right. The woman wears a yellow/white stephane, a dilute white earring and a yellow/white necklace.
Bibliography:
Cambitoglou, A., "Groups of Apulian Red-Figured Vases Decorated with Heads of Women or of Nike", Journal of Hellenic Studies, LXXIV (1954), 111-121.
Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989, 92-93, 264.
Comparanda:
Boulter, C. G. and K. T. Luckner, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA 20, Toledo 2 (1984), Plate 107, 1.
Büsing-Kolbe, A., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Deutschland 43, Mainz 2 (1978), Tafel 9, 3.
Hafner, G., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Deutschland 8, Karlsruhe 2 (1952), Tafel 73, 9 and 10.
Kranz, P. and R. Lullies, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Deutschland 38, Kassel 2 (1975), Tafel 81, 1.
Metzger, I. R. et al, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Schweiz 5, Svizzera 5 (1979), Tavola 52, 3 (similar head).
Trendall, A. D. and A. Cambitoglou, The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Oxford, Clarendon, 1982, II, Plate 377, 6 and 7 (very similar heads on plates by the White Saccos Painter).
Wisseman, S. U., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA 24, Illinois 1 (1989), Plate 52, 3 (similar size and decoration).