Attic Pottery - Red-Figure Ware: Lekythos
Inv. No.: 95.013
Provenance: Attica (Metaponto)
Date: middle of 5th century BC
Height: 155mm
Diameter: 58mm
This lekythos is complete, but re-assembled from several large fragments with some infilling. It has an echinus mouth, a long, narrow neck, a flat shoulder and a cylindrical body that ends in a rounded base set on a disc foot. The flat strap handle passes up alongside the neck from its base; it then curves around and down on to the edge of the shoulder. The top part of the vase is mainly red with black used on the outsides of the mouth and handle. A double row of black rays decorates the shoulder. The body is black except for a geometric pattern and a red-figure depiction of a stocky woman in a domestic setting.
Function:
A container for oil or perfumed oil, used for domestic or funerary purposes.
Manufacture:
This vase was thrown on the wheel in sections with the neck probably thrown from a coil of clay placed on the shoulder. The foot, neck and mouth were turned at the leather-hard stage. The handle was shaped by hand and joined to the vase using slip.
Decoration:
- The vase is painted black on the exterior and interior of the mouth and the outside of the handle. The top of the lip, the neck and the shoulder are reserved.
- The shoulder is decorated with a band of short black rays around the base of the neck and another band of longer, more diagonal rays towards the outside edge.
- There is a band of rightward facing maeander pattern between double black lines at the top of the body. The rest of the body is black except for the red-figure scene that is set on a narrow red band which continues around the entire circumference of the vase. A short woman is shown in profile, facing right. She wears a chiton edged with black lines and has a red fillet in her black hair. She is holding a lidded bowl over a large kalathos that is placed on the ground line. The side of the bowl is decorated with a band of squares with a pattern of two red squares followed by one black. The kalathos or wool basket flares towards its top. At the top edge is a band of black dots set between lines, one at the top and two below. In the middle is a black ring with short, upright lines above it and below, a dotted band between black lines. There is a similar sequence at the bottom. Such baskets were usually made from wicker. Behind the woman is a profile depiction of a high-backed (slatted?) chair. A garment hangs in the field, beneath the maeander pattern.
- The foot is painted black except for the edge of the disc which is reserved.
Bibliography:
Beard, M., "Adopting an Approach II", Looking at Greek Vases, eds. T. Rasmussen and N. Spivey, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, 21-35.
Bérard, C., "The Order of Women", A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, trans. D. Lyons, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1989, 89-107.
Comparanda:
Burow, J., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Deutschland 54, Tübingen 5 (1986), Tafel 37, 5-6 (woman holding similar bowl), Tafel 38, 5-6 (more elegant version of a similar scene of a chair, kalathos and a woman working wool).
Hoppin, J. C. and A. Gallatin, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA 1, Hoppin and Gallatin (1926), Plate 13, 4 (similar vase and scene, but without kalathos).
Moignard, E., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 16, Edinburgh 1 (1989), Plate 28, 8 (similar combination of a woman holding a box over a kalathos on a squat lekythos).
Shapiro, H. A., Art, Myth, and Culture: Greek Vases from Southern Collections, New Orleans Museum of Art, Tulane University, 1981, No. 52 (more elegant version of a similar scene of a chair, woman with wool and kalathos).