Toledo 1964.126 (Vase)

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Collection:	Toledo Museum of Art
Summary:	Tondo: komos: singing youth and dancing manSide A: five figures moving rightSide B: five opposing figures
Ware:	Attic Red Figure
Painter:	Attributed to the Foundry Painter
Date:	ca. 480 BC
Dimensions:	h. 12.5 cm; d. of rim 28.8 cm; w. with handles 37.0 cm; d. of foot 12.0 cm.
Primary Citation:	Para, 370, no. 12 bis
Shape:	Kylix
Period:	Late Archaic

Decoration Description:

Reserved: a narrow band on the interior of the lip, two bands beneath the figures on the exterior, the outer edge of the foot and its narrow resting surface. On the underside, a broad black band encircles a reserved area at the center.

Interior: Komos. A youth sings and accompanies himself on a lyre; a bearded man dances behind him. Both wear wreaths, himatia and shoes. The man has a long fillet with fringed ends tied around his head and he carries a knurled staff. His himation has a black band at its border and a stripe of black dots above this. The youth is infibulated. Added red: The wreaths of both figures, the man's fillet, the youth's plectrum and its cord, the tuning pegs and the supporting strap looped over the youth's left hand; also the letter in the field (cf. CVA, USA 17, Toledo 1, p. 35, fig. 10). The border consists of stopped meanders to the left in groups of three, punctuated by cross-squares. The odd-man-out is at ten o'clock.

Side A: Five figures all moving or dancing to the right. The first (on the left) is a youth playing flutes. The second, a man with his face shown frontally, wears a fillet tied at the back of his head, with the loose ends pulled through the fillet forming loops at the sides of his head. His outspread himation covers his raised right arm and he holds a black skyphos in his left hand. The third figure, a man, sings while accompanying himself on a lyre. The fourth, a man who dances and sings with his head thrown back, must have held a krotala in both hands, although his right hand is lost below the wrist. The figure on the far right is a nude boy who holds a T-topped staff in his right hand and a basket over his left shoulder. All wear wreaths. The men and youth wear himatia with black borders. Part of the border of the third figure's himation has an edging of dots, and two dotted stripes appear at the back of it to the left of his legs. Only the second figure from the left wears shoes. The third figure is infibulated. Added red: Wreaths, the plectrum cord, its tuning pegs and supporting cord which is looped over the player's left hand and the inscriptions (cf. CVA, USA 17, Toledo i, p. 36, fig. 11).

Side B: Five figures, positioned in opposing directions. The first (on the left) is a nude boy. He holds a basket over his right shoulder and a knurled staff in his left hand. He moves to the right, but looks back over his right shoulder to the similar nude boy on Side A. The second figure from the left, a man, stands facing right and leans forward on a T-topped staff. He sings to the music played by the next figure, a girl dressed in a chiton and himation who stands facing the second figure and playing the pipes. Behind her, the fourth figure, a youth, dances toward her but looks back right toward the figure on the far right, a man who leans on a T-topped staff while vomiting. A basket hangs in the field next to him. All wear wreaths and the fourth and fifth figures have fillets tied around their heads. The men wear himatia with black borders; the himation of the second figure has dotted edging and dotted stripes. Added red: The wreaths, the cords and tassels of the baskets, the fillet and vomit of the figure on the far right, and the inscriptions (cf. CVA, USA 17, Toledo 1, p. 36, fig. 12).

Relief contours throughout, except for the outlines of the hair, which is reserved. In the tondo, the preliminary sketch indicates that the dancer's raised right foot was originally intended to point up rather than out.

Attributed by Dietrich von Bothmer (Para., 370, no. 12 bis). The Foundry Painter is ranked by Beazley as the principal member of the circle of the Brygos Painter (ARV2, 400). He says of him, "The Foundry Painter is an excellent artist: with his forcible, sometimes even brutal, style he often equals the Brygos Painter." The painter's namesake vase, a cup in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin F 2294, shows a sculptor's workshop in which steps in the process of casting, assembling and finishing a bronze statue are depicted. The Foundry Painter is noted for these scenes of craftsmen, but he also handles scenes of athletes, warriors, banqueters and komasts (as on this cup) with spirit and originality. His detailed rendering of the animated revelers and their various stages of intoxication on the Toledo cup shows acute observation and an earthy sense of humanity.

Another of the Foundry Painter's cups (Berlin F 3198: ARV2, 402, no. 13; AA [1982] 101) is close in style to the Toledo cup and has the same subject, a komos. Beazley remarked that the Berlin cup as a komos by the Foundry Painter, "could be set beside the Brygos painter's komoi" (Beazley 1918, 94). Later Beazley cited the Toledo komos in making a further comparison between the two painters ("Un realista greco," infra).

Inscriptions:

The inscriptions in the fields above the figures on the interior and exterior of this cup are assemblages of Greek letters, not as actual words, but rather as indications of the slurred sounds and humming of the drunken revelers as they sing and dance to the music.

Essay:

Moon No. 101

Collection History:

gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Sources Used:

Moon 1979, no. 101, pp. 178-179.

Other Bibliography:

Riefstahl 1968, 41; J.D. Beazley, in "Un realista greco" Adunanze straordinaire per il conferimento dei premi della Fondazione A. Feltrinelli (Rome 1966) 57-58; Para., 370, no. 12 bis; CVA, USA 17, Toledo 1, p. 35, pls. 55 and 56, p. 35, fig. 10, and p. 36, figs. 11 and 12.