Vase Catalog Number: Mississippi 1977.3.65

Decoration:

On the body of Side A, Dionysos, holding an ivy branch in his right hand and a kantharos in his left, moves to the right between a pair of eyes. He wears a long chiton, a himation wrapped diagonally over one shoulder, and a wreath. On the shoulder of Side A, the center of the field carries a pair of eyes with a nose. Figural scenes then flank this central motif. On the left, a seated man is flanked by naked youths. The man is bearded, dressed in a long chiton and himation. He wears a fillet in his hair and holds a staff in his left hand. The youths both move to the right, with the forward figure looking back over his shoulder. On the right, Dionysos is seated between dancing satyrs. He holds a drinking horn in his right hand. On the body of Side B, a warrior moving right stands between two youths, with the scene again placed between a set of large eyes. The unbearded youths are wrapped in himatia and face the warrior. The warrior wears a short chiton, a corslet, a sword at his waist, greaves, and a Corinthian helmet with a bit of his beard showing out from the bottom. He carries a spear in his right hand and a Boeotian shield on his left arm. On the shoulder of Side B, there is again the central motif of eyes and nose, but both flanking scenes are fights. On the left, two warriors move to the right, attacking a falling warrior. All the warriors wear corslets, short chitons, greaves and Corinthian helmets, and carry a spear and a shield. On the right, a single warrior moving to the right attacks a falling warrior. The portrayal of the warriors is the same as on the left.

On the body of the vase, the area under the handles is filled with a running satyr carrying an ivy branch in each hand. The subsidiary decoration on the vase is fairly elaborate. The scenes on the body of the vase are separated from the shoulder by two lines. The shoulder scene is bounded on the top by a zone of tongue pattern. The neck is decorated with addorsed palmettes. The lower body is decorated with a simple key maeander running left, above a zone of lotus buds, above a zone of rays.

The Antimenes Painter decorated a large body of vessels, especially neck-amphorae and hydriae, in the last third of the sixth century. Several features of this vase are typical of his work, while certain others make this vase unique. The use of eye decoration is most frequently found on cups, but does occur on a small number of other shapes. The Antimenes Painter decorated a series of neck amphorae with eyes and Dionysiac scenes. Dionysiac scenes are common in the artist's repertoire, and the depiction of a seated Dionysos as on the shoulder of Side A was especially favored by the Antimenes Painter. In his depiction of Dionysos, the Antimenes Painter uses both the drinking horn and the kantharos, which began to replace the drinking horn in the 540s, as an attribute of the god. Also typical of the painter's style is the choice and placement of the subsidiary decoration. This Mississippi vase is exceptional, however, in that it has eyes on both the body and the shoulder. It appears to be a combination of two types of vases decorated by the Antimenes Painter. The first is the Dionysos mask between eyes (also with satyrs under the handles) placed on the body of the vase, like London B 266. The other type features decoration between eyes in an enlarged shoulder zone with the rest of the body glazed, like Louvre F 202. One example of this type, New York 64.11.12, either by the Antimenes Painter or close to him, has the eyes and a nose in the middle and scenes to the side, like the Mississippi vase. The Mississippi vase is the only instance of the Antimenes Painter combining these two decorative schemes.

Collection History:

Once in the Robinson collection. Harvard Inv. no. 140

Sources Used:

Robinson 1956, no. 15; Carpenter 1986; Burow 1989

(Anne Harrison)