Vase Catalog Number: Harvard 1960.346

Decoration:

Side A: Two nude, ithyphallic komasts (revelers) are clutching and pawing a pair of nude hetairai (prostitutes). The women move away from the men, as though teasing them or expressing unwillingness to succumb; the latter is unlikely, considering their nudity and the fact that they have been hired for the evening. The man at left is bearded and balding, and wears a cloak over his shoulders. He gestures with his left hand and reaches with his right for the woman's right arm. She walks to the right but looks back at the man, a black skyphos in her left hand and a leopard-skin flute case (sybene) in her right. She wears a kekryphalos, dotted earrings, anklet, thigh-band, and a necklace with a chain drawn with dilute glaze. At right, the second komast, a beardless youth, extends his left hand to grab the second hetaira by the leg while reaching for her breast with his right hand. She walks to the right but looks back at the youth, a kylix in her left hand (which she expertly keeps level), her right hand raised to summon or ward off her suitor. The youth wears a padded fillet and kothornoi, tall boots with the tops rolled down. The hetaira wears a kekryphalos with trailing ends, earrings, and a necklace like her companion. On both women, the tuft of hair in back is rendered in dilute glaze, which on the first hetaira is also used for the hair around the brow and temples.

Side B: A hetaira is accosted on either side by two komasts, one a bearded man, the other a youth with budding sideburns drawn with dilute glaze. The woman walks to the left but looks back at the youth at right. She is nude except for a kekryphalos with trailing ends and a necklace with a chain of dilute glaze. Curls in dilute glaze emerge from her cap over the brows and temples. She raises her right hand and holds a black skyphos in her left. The youth seems to be capering or dancing, with his right leg in the air. He is nude and ithyphallic. He holds a small (empty?) wineskin in his left hand and reaches with his right hand for the woman's left arm. The man at left reaches out to touch the woman's belly with his left hand; in his right hand he holds a knotty staff. The man is nude but not (yet) ithyphallic.

The panels are framed below by a narrow reserved stripe, at the sides by ivy vines, and above by a band of black tongues. On the neck of side A is a band of inverted lotus buds and dots. There are rays on the lower body and ivy vines on the side of the rim. On each handle-plate is a single black palmette framed by coiling tendrils. On top of the rim are animals in black silhouette: on either side, two groups of a goat and leopard, and half of a goat inserted to fill the remaining space. Stripes of added red circle the vase above the rays, below the panels, and on the outer and inner edges of the mouth.

Parallels:

The Pig Painter was one of the Early Mannerists, a name given the group by Beazley, who saw in their lean, sometimes elegant but other times impossibly robust figures something of the mannerism of 16th-century Flemish art, an analogy that has subsequently proved difficult to support, even if one knows what he meant. The Mannerists might also be termed "sub-archaic," as they tended to adhere to older, Late Archaic subjects, compositions, and formulae at a time when more innovative painters were taking the first steps toward the development of the Early Classical style. The group's founder was Myson, and the Pig Painter must have been his main pupil; their styles are closely related. Other workshop members included the Leningrad Painter and, at some time in his career, the Pan Painter. The Mannerists were pot-painters, as opposed to cups, with column-kraters a particular specialty. The Pig Painter painted mostly column-kraters, but also amphorae, pelikai, and hydriai. He was particularly fond of drawing satyrs and maenads, as well as their human correspondents: bawdy, robust komasts and hetairae in full revel. Cf. the komoi on two other of his column-kraters with framed pictures: Cleveland 26.549 and Louvre G 355 (ARV2, 563, 9-10). Sometimes there are only two komasts on a side, either two males or a male and female. The female flute-player on Palermo V 789 (ARV2, 564, 20) is the performing counterpart of the hetaira on this vase, whose flutes either have been returned to their case now that dinner is over, or were left sheathed as their owner stripped down for immediate action; cf. also the way the man on the Palermo vase touches the girl's belly. For the Mannerists, see Robertson 1992, 143; and Boardman 1975, 179-80. For Myson and the Pig Painter, see Berge 1992. For hetairai on red-figure vases, see Peschel 1987; Reinsberg 1989; and Keuls 1985.

Collection History:

ex Branteghem coll; E. P. Warren coll.; Bequest of David M. Robinson.

Condition:

Broken and repaired, with restoration and repainting in the cracks and gaps. Reserved areas, including parts of several figures, are damaged by pitting and erosion. Much of the neck on both sides is lost, including a large part of the lotus buds. Rim chipped.

Shape Description:

Column-krater: tapering body; foot in two degrees (torus with rounded riser); relatively short neck.

Sources Used:

CVA, Robinson 3.

Other Bibliography:

Robinson exhibition catalogue 1961, no. 106; CVA, Robinson 3, 15-16, pls. 6-7.

(Michael Padgett)