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Vase Catalog Number: Boston 10.178

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Collection:Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Summary:Side A: athletic victor. Side B: youth offering him a wreath.
Ware:Attic Red Figure Shape:Amphora
Painter:Attributed to the the Kleophrades Painter Potter:
Context: Region:
Date:490 B.C. Period:Late Archaic
Dimensions:
Primary Citation:ARV2, 183, 9

Essay: C & B No. 16

16. 10.178. AMPHORA. Athletic victor and friend. PLATE V

Height, 0.454 m.; diameter, 0.281 m. Of Panathenaic shape. Intact. The exterior, except for the top of the lip, covered with black glaze, which has turned greenish in the firing. The sparing use of relief contours is clearly indicated in Beazley's drawings, J.H.S. xxxvi, 1916, pp. 130, 131, figs. 5 A and B. The following parts of the contours are in relief: on side A, the profile, the neck, part of the right elbow, the triangle formed by the back with the left arm, the right hand, the feet, the hare, the aryballos with its strap; on side B, the profile, the front line of the neck, both hands, the lower outline of the right forearm and part of that of the left, both feet (except the top of the left), the left leg, the front line of the right leg. The hair contours incised. Red used for the three wreaths, the fillets of the athlete, the cords by which the hare and the aryballos, are suspended. Brown used for the whiskers of both youths, the iris of the friend's eye, anatomical markings on both figures, the hare's fur. The character of the athlete's face is lost in the drawing, but is well shown in the photograph.

Once in the hands of Basseggio in Rome, the amphora passed into the Bammeville and Forman collections. Ann. Rep. 1910, p. 61. Gerhard, A.V., Pl. 275. Baumeister, Denkmäler, iii, p. 1987, fig. 2129. Duruy, Histoire, ii, p. 195. Bammeville Sale Cat., no. 41. The Forman Collection, p. 68, no. 342. Beazley, J.H.S. xxx, 1910, p. 49, no. 12B, especially ibid. xxxvi, 1916, pp. 124, 130, 131, figs. 5 A and B. V.A., p. 68. Hoppin, ii, p. 141, no. 10. Beazley, Att. V., p. 70, no. 6. A drawing of the shape in Hambidge, Dyn. Sym., p. 130, and Caskey, G.G.V., p. 79, no. 41.

The powerfully built, long-legged youth on the obverse is characterized as an athletic victor by the fillets tied about his left arm and thigh. He is loaded with gifts from admiring friends: a hare, still alive to judge from its wide-open eyes and contracted hind-legs, a long knotted walking-stick, and an aryballos. These friends are represented by the draped youth on the reverse, who is offering him a wreath.

Several red-figured vase paintings showing athletes similarly adorned with fillets are cited by Jüthner in his article 'Siegerkranz und Siegesbinde', in Jahreshefte, i, 1898, pp. 428 f., figs. 27-31. To these may be added: (1) a cup in Munich, Beazley, Att. V., p. 17, no. 78. 'Early Oltos.' (2) A cup in the Cabinet des Médailles, Paris, Cab. Méd. 532. Luynes, Descr., Pl. 45; A.Z. 1853, Pl. 52; Gardiner, Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals, p. 206, fig. 25; Beazley, Att. V., p. 54, below, no. 3. 'Ashby painter.' (3) An amphora in Petrograd, Stroganoff collection. Compte Rendu, 1874, Pl. VII, 4-6; Beazley, Att. V., p. 209, no. 129. 'Douris.' (4) A cup in Florence, Campana collection. Inside, a naked youth with red fillets round arms and one thigh, bending, holding a live hare by the ears and hind legs; in his right hand, a wreath; behind him, a walking-stick. 'Colmar painter' (Beazley). (5) A hydria in Caltagirone, Mon. Ant. xxviii, 1922, pp. 115-18, figs. 6, 7. (6) A cup in the Canino collection, Gerhard, A.V., Pl. 274, 1; Gardiner, op. cit., p. 206, fig. 26. (7) The cup by the Euaion painter in Boston, reproduced below, no. 44, Pl. XIX (Boston 10.181). And, among black-figured vases: (8) A lekythos from Athens: Guildford collection. Stackelberg, Die Graeber der Hellenen, Pl. XII. (9) A covered cup in Boston, Boston 95.16. Collection van Branteghem, no. 21, Pl. 2. Walking-sticks appear in two representations of athletes receiving the phyllobolia,(Note i.13.1) as well as on the cup, no. 4, above (Boston 13.193). That cup furnishes the only other instance of a hare as a gift on so solemn an occasion.(Note i.13.2)

About 490 B.C. By the Kleophrades painter, and to be assigned to his earlier, though not to his earliest period. Beazley notes that his red-figured amphorae of Panathenaic shape are earlier than his amphorae with twisted handles; the same change of fashion is seen in the works of his contemporary, the Berlin painter.(Note i.13.3)(Note *)

Notes:

i.13.1) Jüthner, l.c. p. 44, fig. 28; and Louvre G 296, Pottier, Album, iii, Pl. 134.

i.13.2) Stephani therefore denies that our youth is a victor, explaining him as a hunter who has killed a hare with his lagobolon (Compte Rendu, 1874, p. 162). Jüthner rightly rejects this interpretation, but raises the question whether some of the pictures, including ours, may not represent successes in practice contests at home, rather than victories at the great athletic festivals.

i.13.3) See Der Berliner Maler, pp. 9-10.

*) (From Addenda to Part I) No. 16. (After Caskey), Arch. class. 2 pl. 7, 2; detail of A, Kl. pl. 18, 4; Chase Guide p. 64. ARV. p. 121, Kleophrades Painter no. 7.

Keywords:

athlete, holding, victor, wreath, youth

Views:

7 Images

Archive NumberCaption
1990.24.0478Side A: scene at center
1992.11.0023Side A: scene at center
1990.24.0479Side B: scene at center
1992.11.0026Side A: athletic victor
1992.11.0024Side A: athletic victor, from the waist up
1992.11.0025Side B: youth with wreath
1992.11.0022Side B: youth with wreath, from the waist up
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