Vase Catalog Number: Mississippi 1977.3.81

Decoration:

The primary decoration of this vase is an ivy-berry tendril on the middle of the body. This decorative zone is flanked above and below by lattice work and a key meander. The decoration on the body does not encircle the vase but stops at the sides. The mouth, neck, handle and lower body of the vase are glazed. The shoulder is decorated with rays, and the foot is semi-reserved.

Pattern lekythoi, ranging from the late sixth through the fifth century, represent a mass-produced, less expensive alternative to figured lekythoi, produced at the same time, by the same artisans. The decoration of these patterned vases can include a variety of geometric and natural designs, with palmette chains being the most frequently used motif. Ivy-berry tendrils on pattern lekythoi are most common in the second half of the fifth century.

The white ground technique, which first becomes popular in the experimental stage of Attic vase painting in the 520's, consists of covering the natural reddish ground of the clay with a thin white "slip" of ultra-refined clay, which remains white after firing. In the earliest usage of this white ground technique, decoration in the standard black-figure technique of silhouette with incision and added color would then be placed against this lighter background. Later there is a switch to an outline technique. From its inception until the mid fifth century, the white ground technique is used primarily to decorate small vases, such as lekythoi, pyxides, and alabastra, and small areas of larger vases. After the middle of the fifth century, white ground is used only rarely for vases other than lekythoi.

Collection History:

Once in the Robinson Collection. Harvard Inv. No. 175.

Condition:

Discoloration from oxidation.

Shape Description:

The "standard cylindrical shape" lekythos developed at the end of the sixth century and continued to be produced until the beginning of the fourth.

Sources Used:

CVA, Robinson I, pl. 38, 6; Kurtz 1975; Beazley 1938; Mertens 1977

(Anne Harrison)