116. 03.790 FRAGMENTARY NECK-AMPHORA SUPPL. PLATE 18, 11
(Height of the fragment 0.133). RM. 16 pl. 5 and p. 119 (Hartwig). A, Dionysos and satyr; B, Dionysos and Ariadne. About 525 B.C. (VA. p. 5; ARV.1 p. 12; ARV.2 p. 11 no. 2). This unique vase is of the same type as many small black-figured neck-amphorae, and was evidently decorated by a black-figure painter, exceptionally with pictures in red-figure. The pattern-bands and the floral designs at the handles are exactly as in black-figure. The red-figure panels have no side-border to frame them off from the black-figure areas, only a relief-line. The handles are triple; the fillet between neck and body is red. A. Dionysos sits on a campstool, with a kantharos in one hand and a spreading branch of ivy in the other. He wears a long chiton, a himation, and an ivy-wreath. In front of him a satyr dances, with head full-face, and one knee almost touching the ground. B. Dionysos, dressed in long chiton and himation, sits on a simple block, holding an ivy-branch in his right hand, while his left hand rests on his thigh, holding his himation and concealed by it. A woman sits opposite him on a seat which has no back but richly ornamented legs, extending her left arm, talking to him. She wears a peplos, a himation draped over the right shoulder and the left arm, a wreath, and large ear-rings. It is Ariadne, or perhaps Semele. For the seat compare the more elaborate examples in Richter Ancient Furniture figs. 33-34; for the ear-rings, the vases of the Andokides Painter. The technique is very early red-figure. There is no contour-band (see iii p. 6; Boston 01.8037). Parts of the figures have relief-contour. The following parts have not: on A, face and feet of Dionysos, the knees of the satyr; on B, face, neck, toes, left hand of Ariadne, the feet of Dionysos, the front of his right leg, the handle part of his branch. Within the contours, the following parts are done in brown and not in black: the faces — eyes, brows, nostrils, mouths, ears; on A, the fingers and feet of Dionysos, the details of his sleeve, and the lower edge of his himation; the fingers and toes of the satyr, the details of his right knee, the arcs on his thigh; on B, the toes. With the exceptions just given, the details of the male bodies are in relief-lines. Red is used for the beards, for the leaves of the branches, for every other leaf of the god's wreath, and most of the leaves of Ariadne's; incision for the contours of the hair, the outline and ends of Dionysos' beard, the upper edge of the satyr's beard and the outline of his moustache, the outlines of the wreaths, and two lines on the kantharos. The incised sketch is deep. The garments are patterned in black-figure taste: the chiton of Dionysos on A with small crosses, the himatia with small crosses, and larger crosses having dots in the angles, the peplos of Ariadne with the same in diamond-shaped compartments. On A, the himation of Dionysos has a broad border above, an indented line with v's in the angles; on B, his chiton has an ess-border below. The artist is trying his hand at emulating the Andokides Painter. It ought to be possible to find black-figure neck-amphorae by him, but I have not succeeded. The Red-Line Painter comes to mind, but his work is probably later and the correspondence is not exact.1 I am rather reminded of the Three-Line Group, although the quality there is much superior.2 Among early red-figured vases the nearest are perhaps the bilingual amphora Munich 23003 and the cups by the Painter of the Vatican Horseman,4 but they are not very near.J. G. Szilágyi, Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 28 (1966), p. 17, note 10; Para., p. 321, no. 2 (listed under Sundry very early red-figure pots); A. Büsing-Kolbe, MarWPr 1971/72, p. 63; Wandlungen, pp. 207-208, 214, note 12 (S. Karusu); Blech 1982, p. 193, note 63; LIMC, III, 1, p. 448, no. 259, III, 2, pl. 323, illus. (C. Gasparri and A. Veneri); Korshak 1987, p. 51, no. 72; D. von Bothmer, Gnomon 60 (1988), p. 181; B. Cohen, Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 4 (1989), p. 81, note 46; Beazley Addenda 2, p. 151.