Vase Catalog Number: Harvard 1959.187

Decoration:

Side A: Demeter hands wheat to Triptolemos. The goddess stands at left, her body in three-quarter view, her head turned down and to the right. With her left hand she holds her scepter vertically, and with her right proffers the wheat; added red is used for the stalks and details of the heads. She wears a peplos with a black border, a radiate crown (stephane), and a veil which covers the back of her head. The youthful Triptolemos reaches out his right hand to take the grain. He wears a chlamys and carries a pair of spears. A petasos hangs on his back from a red cord around his neck. In a very rare departure from the usual treatment of this subject, Triptolemos' winged car has been omitted. Side B: Plouton stands facing left, a large cornucopia nestled in his left arm and a scepter held vertically in his right hand. He wears a himation draped over his left shoulder. Plouton is the god of wealth and abundance, and like Demeter is therefore also a god of fertility, for the normal source of wealth in Antiquity was agriculture, symbolized by the fruits in the cornucopiae. As a chthonic deity, Hades, god of the Underworld, was associated with Pluton and eventually the two came to be conflated, a process assisted by the fact that another source of wealth, mineral ore, also came from beneath the ground. The Plouton on this vase may therefore represent Hades, who abducted Demeter's daughter Persephone and indirectly caused Demeter's meeting with Triptolemos, the son of a couple who befriended the grieving goddess. Triptolemos' petasos and chlamys are appropriate for a traveler and remind us that he is about to depart to spread throughout the world the goddess' gift of cereal cultivation.

Graffiti:

On the underside of the foot: KA. A second graffito is a ligature of AN or AU. See Johnston 1979, p. 160, Type 11F, 18; and p. 90, Type 2B, 30.

Parallels:

Cf. the hydria London E 183 (ARV2, 1191, 1), with Plouton holding a scepter and cornucopia and watching Demeter, Kore, and Triptolemos. For Hades/Ploutos, see R. Lindner, et al., in LIMC, IV, 367-94, pls. 210-25 (esp. pls. 211-12).

Collection History:

Gift of Frederick M. Watkins. Previous owners Charles L. Morley and V. Simkhovitch.

Condition:

Broken and repaired. The lower ends of the handles were filed down during an earlier, inaccurate restoration. Some repainting on Demeter and Plouton. Excellent black glaze, somewhat carelessly applied.

Shape Description:

A Nolan of later type, with ridged handles and tall, flaring neck.

Sources Used:

Watkins Catalogue 1973.

Other Bibliography:

Watkins Catalogue 1973, 72-73, no. 29; LIMC, IV, 374, pl. 212, Hades 38; LIMC, IV, 874, pl. 587, Demeter 363.

(Michael Padgett)