Vase Catalog Number: Toledo 1927.97

Decoration:

Side A: A ram walks right with a bearded figure (Odysseus) clinging beneath, his feet protruding out from under the ram's tail. A palmette appears next to each handle. Added red is used for the hair of the Greek, the ram's neck and the central petals and cores of the palmettes. Side B: the same depiction, but the figure clinging to the ram is beardless, and no red is added.

A narrow reserved band runs around the lip's interior, and a circular area in reserve appears at the bottom of the bowl, with two concentric glazed circles and a dot in the center. Also reserved are the base fillet, the outer edge of the foot and its resting surface, and the underside, with a large circle in added red enclosing two black circles and a dot. The inner face of the foot is glazed.

On depictions of Odysseus' escape from the cave see Fellmann 1972 and Touchefeu-Meynier 1968. In certain representations of the encounters with Polyphemos Odysseus is not clearly differentiated from his companions, although here the added red on the beard of the figure on side A appears to serve that purpose. The figure on side B presumably can be taken as a companion to Odysseus.

Collection History:

Ex Collection A. Kann.

Sources Used:

CVA, USA fasc. 17, p. 27, pl. 40, 3 and 4

Other Bibliography:

Catalogue of the American Art Association, 6 Jan. 1927, no. 12 (Alphonse Kann Collection); M. Bieber, AJA 47 (1943), p. 382 and fig. 4 (p. 380); Brommer 1960, p. 316, no. 25; Washington 1962, p. 85; Touchefeu-Meynier 1968, p. 44, no. 107; Riefstahl 1968, p. 34; Para., p. 102, no. 45; Fellmann 1972, p. 84; Brommer 1973, p. 439, no. 31.

(Deirdre Beyer-Honça)