Vase Catalog Number: Harvard 1970.108

Decoration:

Side A: komos. Three nude young revelers are in procession to the right. All three have cloaks draped over their shoulders -- that of the one at right has slipped off his right shoulder -- and all three wear fillets in their short, curly hair. The komast at left throws his chest out and rests his right hand on his hip. In his left hand he holds a staff. Unlike the other two, he is infibulated. The middle youth is playing the double-flutes (auloi); his cheeks are puffed out as he blows. The leader of the procession turns his body frontal and looks back at his companions, gesturing with his lowered right hand. The torch in his left hand shows that the procession takes place at night; they have left one drinking party and are reeling toward another, like Plato's Alcibiades (Plat. Sym. 212d).

Side B: Two youths stand in conversation with a third youth at right; all three wear himations and have short hair fringed with curls of dilute glaze. The youth at left gestures with his right hand; his companion holds a staff with his right hand. The youth at right holds out his right hand, palm upward. In the field above hangs a pair of jumping weights, a common filling device, perhaps suggesting a setting in the palaestra.

A laurel wreath circles the vase beneath the rim. Bands of egg-pattern nearly circle the handle roots. The groundlines on either side consist of groups of three maeanders to right alternating with saltire-squares. The side of the foot is reserved, as is the space between the handle roots.

Parallels:

For another Harvard vase by the Christie Painter, a pot-painter in the Group of Polygnotos, cf. the stamnos Harvard 1925.30.42 (ARV2, 1048, 38). The artist painted variants of this theme, with a komos on one side and three draped youths on the other, several times: see ARV2, 1047, 16-24). The lead komast on Malibu 71.AE.250 (ARV2, 1047, 24) is nearly identical to the leader in this scene, but carries a skyphos instead of a torch. For the Christie Painter, see S. Pingiatoglou, AA (1989) 11-21; For the Group of Polygnotos, including the Christie Painter, see A. Bowtell, The Group of Polygnotos (Dissertation, Oxford University, 1990). For Polygnotos, see Matheson 1993.

Collection History:

Bequest of Mrs. Alfred Mansfield Brooks.

Condition:

Unbroken; surface worn and pitted in places, most noticeable on the handles and adjacent areas on the body, and on the right-hand figures on either side. The glaze misfired red beneath both handles.

Shape Description:

Bell-krater of standard type for the period: torus rim; body tapering to a stem; disk foot with groove at top of side; two handles tilted upward and rolled back slightly.

Sources Used:

Buitron 1972.

Other Bibliography:

E. H. Dohan, "A Bell-Krater by the Christie Painter," The University Museum Bulletin, 6 (1936) 126-8, no. 4; Buitron 1972, 128-9, no. 71.

Essay: Buitron No. 71

RED-FIGURE BELL-KRATER

Lent by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; bequest of Ruth Steele Brooks (1970.108)

Bibliography: E. H. Dohan, "A Bell-Krater by the Christie Painter," The University Museum Bulletin 6 (The University of Pennsylvania May 1936) no. 4, pp. 126-128, pl. VII; ARV2, 1047, no. 20.

(Michael Padgett)