Apulian Pottery - Red-Figure Ware: Pelike

Inv. No.: 95.119
Provenance: Apulia (Metaponto)
Date: 4th century BC
Height: 253mm
Diameter: 160mm
 
A small pelike with a narrow neck leading to a rounded body with a low, sagging belly. The disc shaped foot is in three degrees with grooves separating the sections. Each has a convex profile; the middle section is widest. There is a groove on the top of the foot, around the join with the body. The wide flaring mouth ends in a flat lip with an echinus profile. It is grooved underneath and there is a moulded ridge where the lip joins the neck. The handles are round in cross section. They pass from the shoulder to the top of the neck below the lip. The vase is black inside the mouth and neck and on the outside except for the red-figure, floral and geometric decoration and the following orange-red reserved areas: the ridge below the lip, the groove on the foot where it joins the body and the outer edge of the lowest section of the foot. On one side of the vase there is the figure of a woman with offerings and on the other, a female head in profile. This is a common decorative scheme on Apulian vases with the heads perhaps representing either Aphrodite or Persephone. The vase has been repaired; it is abraded in places with some incrustation.

Function:
A container for wine, oil or water, used for domestic or funerary purposes.

Manufacture:
A wheel-made vase with turned foot and lip and hand-made handles.

Decoration:

1. Side A: there is a black dotted ovolo pattern between black lines on a reserved band on the neck.
2. On the body there is a three-quarter view of a woman wearing a peplos. Her head is shown in profile, facing left. She steps forward with her right leg and holds a mirror in her right hand and a garland in her left. Her hair is covered with a kekryphalos with black hair visible at the front and at the back. She also wears a white bead diadem plus an earring, a double necklace and double bracelets painted in dilute white. To the left of the woman is a stele with three white bands at the top. The scene is framed by upright palmette plants. There is a rosette in the field in front of the woman, another behind her and a window at the top, on the right.
3. Beneath the scene is a battlement pattern in black between black lines on a reserved band.
4. Side B: on the neck is a black dotted ovolo pattern, similar to that on Side A.
5. The main picture on the body is the profile head of a woman, facing left, wearing a kekryphalos decorated with two rows of black dots and a battlement pattern. There are some white splodges, perhaps meant to represent a diadem. The woman also wears an earring and a necklace painted in dilute white. The head is framed by upright palmette plants; a ring and a rosette decorate the field behind it, and there is a window at the top, on the right.
6. The ground line on this side is formed by a zigzag pattern in black between black lines on a reserved band.

Bibliography:
Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989, 92-94.

Comparanda:
Green, J. R., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, USA 22, Philadelphia 1 (1986), Plate 4, 3 (female figure on a squat pelike).

Kranz, P. and R. Lullies, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Deutschland 38, Kassel 2 (1975), Tafel 79, 1-3 (similar shape and similar scheme of female figure and palmette plants on Side A).

Moignard, E., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Great Britain 16, Edinburgh 1 (1989), Plate 40, 3-4, 6-7 (female heads on pelikai).

Romanelli, P., Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Italy 6, Lecce 2 (1979), IV Dr, Tavola 39, 1, 3-4 (pelikai with female figures) and 5-6, 8-16 (heads).

Trendall, A. D., Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily: a Handbook, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989, Fig. 224-5 (bell crater from the Chevron Group with a similar combination of figure and profile head), Fig. 227, 1-8 (examples of female heads from vases of the Darius-Underworld workshop; note especially 2 and 6).