University of Chicago 1967.115.60
Attic Red-Figure Fragment
The Niobid Painter
ca. 465-460 B.C.
Lent by The David and Alfred Smart Gallery, The University of
Chicago; given by Professor F.B. Tarbell (1967.115.60, formerly UC 296). From
Athens. Given to Professor Tarbell by Mr. E.P. Warren, who bought it from
Hartwig.
The Vase: Max. diam. 5.3 cm; th.
0.8 to 0.9 cm. The fragment is quite thick and flat, but it was turned on the
wheel; shiny black glaze inside and out, with some scratches and chips.
Decoration: There remain head,
shoulders, and right side of a warrior leaning forward. He wears a chlamys
buckled at the neck with a large round black-centered brooch and thrown back at
the right to expose a prominent nipple and ribs done in relief line. On his head
is an elaborate Thracian helmet, the crest, cheekpiece, and rim reserved, a
reserved floral decoration spiraling up the side of the black headcover. His
long wavy hair escaping from under the helmet, and the fringe of his beard
showing under the cheek-piece are done in thin glaze. At the left is part of an
upraised arm and hand, not his, and at the right, part of an unexplained object
or figure. The broad preliminary outline is visible. There is relief outline
everywhere; the relief line is quite thick in places, as ribs, nose, lips, which
tends to give the figure a particularly fierce look. No sketch lines are
visible.
Beazley suggested that this piece might be from a lekanis (
ARV2, infra). Certainly the low
curvature, the good glaze inside, and the thickness indicate a lekanis lid. It
would have been a fairly big one. The Niobid Painter specialized in very large
vases, but there is one certain lekanis lid attributed to him, with a Peleus and
Thetis scene (
Naples 2638,
ARV2, 607, no. 89). It counts among a handful of
earlier lekanides with figured decoration; most extant ones were made later in
the century, and those mostly show scenes appropriate to women (see
University of Chicago 1967.115.59). It is
interesting that of the few earlier pieces, one is by the Berlin Painter, three
by artists akin in spirit to his pupil, the Achilles Painter, one by another
pupil, Hermonax. This last, a fragmentary lid,
Ferrara, inv. 3095 (
ARV2, 490, no.
125) has a warrior scene, a battle of gods and giants, and it is
large (49.5 cm in diameter). There is another lekanis, a small one, in
Leningrad, with a battle of Greeks and Amazons, which Beazley dated to 440-430
(
St. Petersburg B 4357,
A. A. Peredolskaya, Krasnofigurnye
attischeskie Vazy [Leningrad 1967] pl. 148 p. 185f., no.
12, and
von Bothmer 1957, p.
172f.).
The Niobid Painter liked warriors. One of his early pieces, a
volute-krater, (
Palermo G 1283,
ARV2, 599, no. 2), has a battle of Greeks
and Amazons on the body. We can compare details of drawing on the Chicago
warrior with this: contrast of dark and light, shape of helmet, tendril
decorating head-piece, shape of cheek-piece with fringe of beard showing below
it, wavy hair escaping below neck-piece, profiles of nose and mouth, rendering
of eye, ribs and nipple. Treatment of eye and ribs indicates an early date. The
long upper lip, the profile of the lips, as though pushed forward, the heavy
relief line everywhere, even for inner markings, are characteristic. For late
work by the painter, see
University of Chicago
1967.115.410, and for a work in his manner, with characteristic subject
matter, see
Chicago 1922.2197.
Greek vase-painting is almost all we have left of Greek painting, and
the Niobid Painter's work has been seen to reflect famous paintings which we
know only from the literature — not the fragments we show, nor the
complete vases they come from, nor the bell-krater in his manner. The Niobid
Painter's chefs-d'oeuvre are large vases, volute and calyx-kraters, none in the
midwest. Neither the pictures nor the drawing are great, but they echo great
innovations — placement of figures, postures, expression, the choice of
the quiet moment before or after action — details considered worthy of
comment in antiquity. One such is the picture of heroes standing and seated
about Athena and Herakles, on the vase in the Louvre whose reverse picture, the
slaughter of the sons and daughters of Niobe, gives the painter his name (
Louvre G 341,
ARV2, 601, no. 22).
The nature of the new art made it unsuitable for the decoration of
the finite, curved surfaces of a pot, and the vase-paintings which give us an
idea of it are not successful. Vase-painting was to lose its vigor as it lost
its youth, and as its purpose, decoration, diverged from that of wall-painting.
The Niobid Painter's is one of several directions which vase-painting took in
the middle of the fifth century. The Chicago Painter and the Achilles Painter
(cf.
Chicago 1889.22 and
St. Louis 15.1951) represent two other prominent paths in
the art of the time.
For lekanides, see
Chicago 1889.99
and
University of Chicago 1967.115.59, with
references. For the Niobid Painter,
Arias
& Hirmer 1962, 354; for contemporary mural painting,
M. Robertson 1975, 24off., and its
connection with the Niobid Painter's work,
M.
Robertson 1975, 253 ff., and 660 and 661, nn. 169 and 170, with
further references.
Bibliography
Johnson 1938, 352, no.
19;
Johnson 1943, 385 (for
reference to Mr. Warren);
ARV2,
607, no. 92.
Louise Berge
