[Image not available]
Three-dimensional approximation of the vase
Overview: main panel
| Collection: | London, British Museum |
| Summary: | Body: Feast of Adonis. Eros and Pan, women gathering incense, dancing, and one woman playing the flute. |
| Ware: | Attic Red Figure |
| Painter: | Attributed to the Apollonia Group |
| Context: | From Cyrenaica |
| Date: | ca. 380 BC |
| Dimensions: | H. 0.395 m. |
| Primary Citation: | |
| Shape: | Hydria |
| Beazley Number: | 230493 |
| Region: | Cyrenaica |
| Period: | Late Classical |
Decoration Description:
Body: Beazley identifies this as the Feast of Adonis. Eight figures are depicted. In the center on the third rung of a ladder a partially clad woman stands (possibly Aphrodite?). She is dropping something into a kylix held by a woman with plaited hair standing on the ground to the left. To the right of the ladder is a small tree with berries, and next to that a woman dances to the right with her head thrown back and lower face veiled with a scarf. On the far right a woman is dancing and playing castanets; she moves to the right but looks back over her shoulder. Between these two women flies an Eros who is playing flutes. On the far right another heavily draped woman is dancing, while next to her at a higher level a woman plays the flutes. Above both of these women is a small, goat-legged dancing Pan.
The paint is white with yellow details laid on for flesh, gilding for details, red for wreaths, and pink and blue for drapery. The hair is drawn with fine brown lines over brown wash.
Below the design and around the lip of the vessel is an egg pattern motif. A palmette is beneath each side handle, and at the back there is a pattern of six palmettes.
The Feast of Adonis appears as a topic on several other vases, most notably
Sources Used:
Other Bibliography: