Vase Catalog Number: Harvard 1972.40

Inscriptions:

In red letters between Priam's head and Achilles' elbow: PRIAMOS. Other inscriptions throughout the panel are apparently meaningless: ICHECh; IOTECh; TINI; CHETEI (the latter retrograde).

Parallels:

The subject is relatively uncommon; see A. Kossatz-Deissmann, in LIMC, I, 147-61, pls. 121-29. Cf. especially the version on a kylix by Oltos, Munich 2618 (ARV2, 61, 74; LIMC, I, pl. 123, Achilleus 656). The Hektor on the Harvard vase is oversized because the artist tried to compensate for the elongation of the groundline in relation to the upper part of the picture, a distortion brought about by the tapering slope of the vessel shoulder. Achilles carving a piece of meat, and the meat on the table, are standard elements of such scenes; see the examples illustrated in Kossatz-Deissmann (ref. above).

Beazley placed the Harvard vase in the category of "Sundry Pioneers," associated with the first major school of red-figure vase-painters, and said the style recalled Euthymides and earliest Kleophrades Painter (Para., 324). Kossatz-Deissmann follows H. Cahn in calling it "Circle of Euthymides" (see references below). Robert Guy believes it is an early work of the Kleophrades Painter ("Origins of the Kleophrades Painter," unpublished lecture given at the "Glories of the Past" symposium, New York, November 11, 1991). The Kleophrades Painter represented this subject on a later, fragmentary calyx-krater in Athens (Athens, Kerameikos 1977a-g; ARV2, 186, 45). Kalpides of this shape and with pictures confined to the shoulder were decorated by both Euthymides and the Kleophrades Painter, and both employed pomegranates and tongues as framing patterns; cf. a kalpis on loan to the Basel museum (ARV2, 189, 73). The approach to composition is perhaps more like that adopted by Euthymides; cf. ARV2, 28, 12-16. For the style, cf. the kalpis London E 164, which Robertson attributes to an imitator of the early Kleophrades Painter, and which may well be by the same hand as the Harvard kalpis; see M. Robertson, "An Unrecognized Cup by the Kleophrades Painter," in Stele. Tomos eis mnemen Nikolaou Kontoleontos (Athens 1978) 127-28, pl. 43c.

Collection History:

Bequest of Frederick M. Watkins.

Condition:

Intact except for one restored side handle, minuscule chip from cheek and mouth of Hektor. Light abrasion on left couch leg. The glaze on the lower body and sides is streaky and mottled.

Shape Description:

Kalpis hydria: height and width equal; capacious body; deep shoulder; narrow torus mouth; torus foot; fillet between foot and body; rounded handles, tilted sharply upward.

Sources Used:

Watkins 1973; Buitron 1972.

Other Bibliography:

H. Cahn, Kunstwerke der Antike, Münzen und Medaillen Auktion 34, Basel, 6 May 1967, 75-76, pl. 46, no. 149; Buitron 1972, 80-81, no. 37; Watkins 1973, 48-49, no. 19; A. Kossatz-Deissmann, in LIMC, I, 150, pl. 123, Achilleus 655.

Essay: Buitron No. 37

(Michael Padgett)