Vase Catalog Number: Harvard 1969.14

Parallels:

For the shape, cf. Louvre F 47 (ABV, 309, 100), by the Swing Painter. The vase is unattributed (it is not by the Swing Painter). Pedley compared the style to that of the Princeton Painter and the Painter of Berlin 1686; cf. the chariot scene on Munich 1375 (ABV, 297, 15). Although chariots were not used in warfare in this period, scenes of warriors departing in chariots are common in Attic black-figure of the second half of the sixth century. They may have funerary overtones, with the young hoplite leaving for death and the Underworld in a conveyance whose heroic associations were enshrined in the Homeric poems. The scene on the shoulder is interesting not only for depicting athletes -- still uncommon in this period -- but for one of the earliest representations of a Thracian zeira, a cloak adopted by Athenian cavalrymen which appears in many later depictions of horsemen; see J. M. Padgett, "Phineas and the Boreads on a Pelike by the Nausicaa Painter," Journal of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 3 (1991) 22-23, and 31, note 33; and Knauer 1987, 22, n. 48, and 28-29.

Collection History:

Gift: A Supporter of Sardis in Recognition of Prof. George Hanfmann and His Eleven Seasons as Field Director of the Harvard-Cornell Archaeological Exploration of Sardis.

Condition:

Broken and repaired, with some repainting of cracks and small gaps, including parts of the following: the tongues below the neck, the ivy vine at left, both shields, the feet of the horses, gesturing man, and man at right, and the left arm and upper torso of the left runner on the shoulder.

Shape Description:

Hydria: plump, ovoid body; relatively steep shoulder; short side handles, tilted upward but not curved; short vertical handle flanked by spurs at the juncture with the lip; tall concave neck; torus rim, flat on top; spreading foot with torus base.

Sources Used:

Pedley 1971.

Other Bibliography:

Parke-Bernet Galleries, January 24, 1969, no. 216A; Fogg Art Museum Newsletter 6:4 (April 1969) 107; Art Quarterly 32 (1969) 324; Art Journal 29 (fall 1969) 53, fig. 1; and J. G. Pedley, "A Black-Figure Hydria in the Fogg Art Museum," in Studies Presented to George M. A. Hanfmann, eds. D.G. Mitten, J.G. Pedley and J.A. Scott (Cambridge, Mass. 1971) 121-26, pls. 32-33.

(Michael Padgett)