Warren G. Moon, Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections

Ann Arbor 2599

Lent by the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, The University of Michigan (2599). From Bolsena. Ex Marburg collection.¹

The Vase: h. c. 16.0 cm; d. of mouth 7.0 to 7.6 cm; d. of rim 8.3 to 8.8 cm; d. of foot 6.2 cm. The foot was broken from the body and repaired. Part of the lip is modern. The vase was badly fired and is much worn. The rim is misshaped over the reverse side. There are indentations on both sides of the body: on the obverse just left of center (where there is an unglazed circular red spot), and at lower right of center on the reverse. The vase has an echinus rim with an inset inner edge, the neck articulated by a groove at join with rim and a fillet at join with body, double handles, an ovoid body joined to a broad and shallow disk foot by a narrow band bordered with tooled grooves above and below. The inside of the mouth and neck are black, the inside of the body reserved. The upper surface and edge of the rim are reserved, the side of the rim is black, the handles are black, the foot is black except for a narrow reserved band left at the lower edge. The underside of the foot is reserved. There are red lines painted around the upper edge of the lip, the fillet at join of neck and body, the band at join of body and foot, the lower edge of the foot.

Decoration: On each side of the neck are three palmettes, the central one pendent, the outer ones upright. Around the shoulder, below its join with the neck, is a band of "tongues." Below the pictures, encircling the vase, is a double row of disjoint dots bordered above and below by two black lines. Rays surround the base. At each handle-zone is a lotus bud pendent from four contiguous tendrils which grow out on each side in lyre formation to border the handle-root and the pendent lotus, terminating each in two spirals, from which spring palmettes, pendent above, upright below. Two small lotus buds spring right and left from the contact points of the tendrils just below the handles; the space between the contact points is dotted. Side A: A draped woman dances right between a man at left and a boy at right, both naked. The woman wears a sakkos. Side B: Two draped women dancing. Both wear sakkoi. Added red: On Side A, band on woman's sakkos, pleats of drapery on upper body, left arm and hand; face of woman and hair of boy may once have been painted. On Side B, bands around sakkoi, traces of paint on pleats of upper drapery and right hand of first woman. Added white: traces on himatia of women on both sides.

This small amphora, the name-piece of the painter, belongs to the Dot-band Class, named for the decorative border around the vase below the pictures. One other vase by the Michigan Painter belongs to the class, as do vases by the Edinburgh Painter, painters of the Leagros Group, painters of the Group of Brussels R 312, and painters of the Bompas Group. The painter himself belongs to the Perizoma Group, named for the large loincloths which drape their male figures. They seem to have specialized in painting stamnoi, a shape which had recently been introduced into the potter's repertoire. (Boardman 1974, 112, 211; fig. 219).

There is a small neck-amphora by the Michigan Painter at The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago 1889.98: Para., 157, no. 95) with Dionysos and satyrs on the obverse and satyrs and maenad on the reverse; the Chicago vase is cited earlier (ABV, 483, no. 2) under the Group of Brussels R 312, the Dot Band Class.

Bibliography

W.G.M.