Vase Catalog Number: Cleveland 30.104

Decoration:

All the subsidiary decoration is black on a reserved background. The surface of the rim is decorated with a chain of lotusbuds, the surface of the handle-plates with palmettes. Around the side of the rim on the obverse is a chain of alternating upright and pendent palmettes connected by tendrils. The obverse picture is framed above by tongues at the join of neck and body, at the sides by a palmette chain like that on the rim, below by a reserved line. Around the side of the rim on the reverse is an ivy wreath. The reverse picture is framed above by tongues (here done with less care than those on the obverse), on the sides by ivy like that on the rim, below by a reserved line. The neck is undecorated. There are rays around the base above its join with the foot.

Side A: A woman or goddess, possibly Artemis, mounts a four-horse chariot in back of which are three figures in attendance. A crowned and sceptered goddess, possibly Hera, holds up a libation dish toward the charioteer. Apollo, wreathed with laurel and carrying his lyre, faces a woman or goddess; possibly she is Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis. Side B: A komos: three young men and a bearded man proceed to a party, or rather from -- they are already quite jovial. All are naked and wear shawls around their shoulders. The leader turns around to hurry the others on; one plays the lyre while the bearded man and a youth dance in back of him.

This very large column krater is the name-piece of the Cleveland Painter. Only eleven other vases are attributed to him, most of them column kraters. The subjects he chose are common for the shape: the Cleveland chariot scene, a vintage, centauromachies, komasts, Dionysos and his retinue. He evidently liked the alternating palmettes with which he decorated the obverse of the Cleveland vase -- they appear on several other column kraters and on an oinochoe by him. The same pattern decorates the rim on the obverse of a column krater (Bologna 229), by the Pan Painter (ARV2, 551, no. 18); the tongues above the obverse picture are carefully scalloped, those above the reverse picture simple stripes, as on the Cleveland vase. This vase too is very large (54.5 cm high), the foot is similar in form to that of the Cleveland krater, and the picture on the obverse is also a chariot scene. The reverse shows men and youths, draped in himatia, conversing. The head, features, and treatment of hair on the youth at left are very near that of the youth at left on the Cleveland reverse-they could be brothers. Beazley noted that the Cleveland Painter's work shows the influence of the Pan Painter, and first listed one of his vases under "style of the Pan Painter" (Beazley 1925, 470, addendum to p. 105, now ARV2, 517, no. 8). The Cleveland Painter in fact received his "identity" in a footnote in Beazley's monograph on the Pan Painter (Pan-Maler, infra).

The Cleveland Painter crosses paths with another early classical painter of column kraters, the Orchard Painter: oinochoai by both painters have been recognized as works of one potter (ARV2, 517, nos. 11 and 527, no. 74; cf. also Moon 1979, no. 116 on the subsidiary decoration of these oinochoai and through it note a further connection with the Pan Painter, who also seems to have influenced the Orchard Painter at times).

The round heads, heavy jaws, solid bodies of the Cleveland Painter's figures are typical of the art of the early classical period.

For a complete description of the vase, see C. G. Boulter in CVA, infra.

Collection History:

(Not exhibited.) The Cleveland Museum of Art; the J.H. Wade Fund, 1930 (30.104).

Sources Used:

Moon 1979, no. 99, pp. 174-175; ARV2, 516, no. 1.

Other Bibliography:

CMA Annual Report 1930, 41; C.M.A. Bulletin 17 (1930) 137f. and 143. ill; J.D. Beazley, Der Pan-Maler (Berlin 1931) 19, n. 47; ARV1, 351, no.1; ARV2, 516, no. 1; CVA, USA 15, Cleveland 1, p. 16 and pls. 23, 24.

Essay: Moon No. 99

(Louise Berge)