Vase Catalog Number: Boston 26.61

Essay: C & B No. 19

Height, 0.30 m.; diameter, 0.186 m. Broken and repaired with only slight injury to the pictures. A Nolan amphora with triple handles, the foot small, the ovoid body broader than usual, the ration of diameter to height being 1.000 to 1.618; cf. Caskey, G.G.V., p. 75, where the ratios of twelve other Nolan amphorae in Boston are shown to vary from 1.6545 to 1.9045. The exterior painted black, except for a narrow strip at the bottom of the foot and two narrow bands bordering the moulding at the base of the body, which are reserved. Relief contours throughout, except for the hair. Red used for the fillet of the lyre player, the wreath of the listener, the fasteners of the lyre-strings, the two extra strings hanging from the lyre, the cord and tassel of the plectrum, the inscriptions. Thinned paint used for the shading of the bosses on the lyre, for the circles on the cloth hanging from it, and for the neck-muscle of the citharode.

From Gela. Acquired in 1926. Bull. M.F.A. xxiv, 1926, p. 39. Cf. Beazley, Vases in Poland, p. 23, note 2.

On the front, a youth standing in profile to right with head thrown back and mouth open, singing and playing the cithara. His head is encircled by a fillet, and he wears a long Ionic chiton embroidered with crosses, a short black-bordered mantle fastened on his right shoulder, and soft leather shoes. He holds the instrument against his left shoulder with the help of a strap passed round his left wrist from one of the uprights. With the fingers of this hand he touches the strings lightly as he sings. His right hand holds the plectrum ready for striking louder notes in the intervals of the song. The plectrum is decorated with a red tassel, and is fastened to the arm of the cithara by a long cord. Two other cords fastened at the same place perhaps represent spare strings. The ends of a long cloth, decorated with circles, which would be wrapped about the more delicate parts of the instrument when it was not in use, hang from it. The significance of the curved object appearing beside the youth's left hand is obscure. The instrument is the large cithara of complicated structure played by Apollo himself and by performers at musical contests.(Note i.20.1) One detail is noteworthy: the convexity of the large bosses on its arms is indicated by shading in thinned paint, such as is often found in Brygan renderings of still-life. In the field, the inscription, ÊO[P]AIS KALOS.

On the reverse of the amphora a youth, wreathed, wrapped in a voluminous himation, and wearing shoes, stands in a relaxed pose, leaning on a knotted stick, his bowed head resting on his hand. He is not merely a decorative figure, such as often appears on the reverse of Nolan amphorae. He represents the audience; passive in attitude and facial expression, he yields himself up completely to the enjoyment of the music. In the field, ÊOPAIS KA[L]OS.

About 480 B.C. By the Brygos painter; closely related in style to no. 18 and no. 28 (Boston 10.176 and Boston 01.8038). The other representations of lyre-players by this artist are in komos or bacchic scenes; one thinks especially of the splendid Dionysos on the cup in the Cabinet des Médailles, Hartwig, Meisterschalen, Pl. XXXIII. Our musician stands in a quieter pose, as if conscious of the judges who will take the style of his performance into account in making their decision. The ethos of the figure can best be appreciated by contrasting it with the excited citharode on an amphora by the Berlin painter in the Hearst collection, Beazley, J.H.S. xlii, 1922, Pl. II, fig. 1, p. 74, who is not performing in a contest, but practising under the eye of a trainer: he stands ungracefully with both knees bent; the violent movements of his body have set his draperies swinging.(Note *)

i.20.1) On the cithara see Th. Reinach's article, lyra, in Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquités.

*) (From Addenda to Part I) No. 19. ARV. p. 255, Brygos Painter no. 151. A, Buschor Gr. Vasen p. 172; B, Neue Jahrbücher 10 (1934) pl. 2, 3. Two other Nolan amphorae by the Brygos Painter: ARV. p. 255 nos. 150 and 152. Hamm inv. 3690 is a fourth (AJA. 1947 pl. 63; Anz. 1948-9 pp. 133-6: on each side a warrior): this is the vase described by Heydemann in Bull. 1869 p. 191 no. 15: it was then in the Torrusio collection, and the provenience is therefore Nola. See also ARV. p. 956, middle.

Keywords:

chiton, fillet, holding, kithara, leaning, listener, mantle, playing, plektron, shoe, singing, stick, wearing, wreath, youth

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