Vase Catalog Number: Boston 00.356

Essay: C & B No. 36

Height, 0.079 m.; diameter, 0.166 m. Broken, but nearly complete. Missing, part of Apollo's right leg and the adjoining drapery, a smaller bit of his left leg with the front of the woman's left foot, and a larger piece with her left forearm. The red-figured laurel wreath on the cover has relief contours throughout. Most of the stems of the berries are incised. On the exterior the handle ornaments, but not the figures, have relief contours.

Found in a tomb near Vari in Attica. Ann. Rep. 1900, p. 74, no. 32. Fowler and Wheeler, Greek Archaeology, p. 508, fig. 400. Swindler, A.J.A. xix, 1915, p. 408, no. 12, Pl. 28, fig. 4. Beazley, V.A., p. 154. Hoppin, ii, p. 338, no. 9. Langlotz, Griech. Vasenbilder, no. 52, Pl. 35. Philippart, Mon. Piot, xxix, 1928, no. 27, p. 9. Bethe, Griech. Dichtung, p. 158.

The cup is peculiar, not only because it has a cover, but also because of the device for filling it. The stem is hollow and the tube thus formed continues upwards inside nearly to the rim. If the cup was held obliquely upside down, it could be filled almost completely through this tube, and, once filled, it could be emptied only through the mouthpiece. Another cup in the Museum, with black-figured decoration on the cover, has a similar device with an additional protection against spilling: the inner as well as the outer edge of the mouthpiece is walled, and there is only a small slit below where the walls meet.(Note i.33.1) See figure 28. A third covered cap, also black-figured, earlier than the one in Boston, is in Paris.(Note i.33.2) The mouthpiece of our cup has teeth represented round it, the lower row rendered plastically, the upper row painted.

The picture on the cover is executed in colours on a white ground bordered by a large red-figured laurel wreath. Apollo, wreathed with laurel, stands in front view before a girl seated on a rock. His arms are enveloped in the folds of a purple-red mantle which he has drawn apart so that it hangs behind him revealing his slender, long-legged form. The girl, clothed in a light brown Doric peplos fastened on the shoulder by a long pin, sits with her chin on her right hand and holds a lyre with her left. They are gazing into each other's eyes. The contours and the hair of both figures, the inner markings of Apollo's body, the eight strings of the lyre and the details of its tortoise-shell body, the irregular ground and the outline of the rock, the maeander band marking the exergue, and the circle enclosing the picture are done in golden brown glaze of varying tones. Dark purple is used for the folds of Apollo's mantle, and for the spots on the tortoise-shell. The folds of the girl's peplos are dark brown. Certain details were added in relief and gilded: Apollo's wreath, the pin on the girl's dress, her earring and spiral bracelet, the arms of the lyre, the knob at the end of its cross-bar, and four small disks placed on the maeander band below the picture. Traces of gold still remain on the laurel wreath, the earring, the left arm of the lyre, and one of the disks.

The subject is evidently Apollo revealing himself to a Muse on Mt. Helikon. Compare the Muse with lyre seated on a rock inscribed ÊLIKON on the white lekythos by the Achilles painter, F.R. iii, p. 303, fig. 145. In spirit as well as in composition the picture calls to mind sculptured metopes of the Polygnotan period: Hera unveiling herself before Zeus on Mt. Ida (temple of Hera, Selinus); Athena perched on a rock receiving the Stymphalian birds from Herakles (temple of Zeus at Olympia); a woman seated on a rock and a standing woman (north metope 32 of the Parthenon; Aphrodite and Athena?).

On the exterior of the kylix the space on each side between the elaborate handle palmettes is occupied by the figure of a woman, in Ionic chiton and himation, moving to right with head turned back, and holding tendrils in both hands.

About 450 B.C. Attributed by Beazley to the Carlsruhe painter: his masterpiece.(Note *)

i.33.1) Boston 95.16, Collection van Branteghem, no. 21, Pl. 2.

i.33.2) Louvre, Louvre CA 1265. M. Charbonneaux kindly informs me that it is similar in construction to the black-figured example in Boston, except that the top is flat. Height, 0.085 m.; diameter, 0.145 m. A list of covered cups is given by Beazley in Corpus, Oxford, III, H, Pl. 3, 23.

*) (From Addenda to Part I) No. 36. ARV. p. 515, middle ('the reverse is like the work of the Carlsruhe Painter, but I am not sure if I was right in attributing the obverse to him'). I, Pfeiff Apollon pl. 40 (with p. 96); I, Chase Guide p. 82. A covered cup, from Cirrha, in Delphi (A, BCH. 1938 pl. 53, c), is akin to the Boston vase. Inside, outline drawing on a white ground; outside, red-figure. I, a woman playing the flute; round this, in a zone, symposion. A, Dionysos and a maenad; B, the like. On covered cups see Cypr. pp. 44-5.

Keywords:

Apollo, chiton, god, himation, holding, Muse, wearing, woman

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