150. 08.417 HYDRIA from S. Maria di Capua PLATE LXXXVI, 1 and SUPPL. PLATE 21, 1
Height 0.3685. Formerly in the possession of Cav. S. Pascale at Curti (near S. Maria), where it was when Petersen described it in 1893 (RM. 8 p. 338 no. 17); acquired in 1898 by Joseph Clark Hoppin, from whom it passed to the Museum. Harvard Studies 12 p. 335 (Hoppin), whence Jb. 18 p. 43 (Engelmann) and RM. 21 p. 100 (Ducati); AJA. 1917 pp. 41 and 52 (Eldridge); Fairbanks and Chase p. 47 fig. 44; the shape, Hambidge p. 71 and Caskey G. p. 114. The death of Argos. About 470-460 B.C. Mannerist Group (VA. p. 121) and by the Agrigento Painter (Att. V. p. 245 no. 39; ARV.1 p. 381 no. 62; ARV.2 p. 579 no. 84). The hydria, with a picture, framed, on the shoulder, is a favourite type of vase in the Mannerist workshop. The patterns, too, — black lotusbud, net, line — bare, traditional, and loveless — are those most frequently used by the Mannerists. The mouth of the vase is lipped, and decorated with egg-pattern. The topside of the mouth is reserved. The foot has a double curve. The scene is laid in and near the sanctuary of Argive Hera. Her altar is seen; a Doric column indicates a building, her temple; and small plants a meadow or pasture. Hermes draws his sword to attack Argos, who flees, looking round and extending one arm towards the god; his charge, the heifer Io, runs off. Io and Argos are in the middle of the picture; the person in the left half who corresponds to Hermes in the right is a priestess; she stands facing the others, holding sceptre and temple-key. On the extreme left, a man looks on, leaning on his stick, with right arm akimbo and left hand raised in a gesture, one would say, of surprise. On the extreme right, the figure corresponding to the man is a woman standing frontal, looking towards the middle, and raising both forearms. Argos is dressed as a herdsman, in a goatskin and a skin hat, with sandals and stockings; a sword is slung round him, and he holds a club. His hair and beard are somewhat rough, and his body is covered with eyes. For the hat see ii pp. 48-9 (Boston 10.185). Hermes wears a chlamys, with a petasos hanging at his shoulders. The women wear chiton, himation, ear-rings, bracelets. The hair of the priestess is bound with a cord, forming a chignon, and she has a necklace; the hair of the other woman is in a saccos, which ends in a tassel or pompon. Io herself has been priestess of Hera, κλῃδοῦχος Ἤρας in the words of Aeschylus. The priestess here is her successor. The sceptre has the common barber's pole-ornament.1 The head of it is done very roughly: the painter forgot to define the fleur-de-lis top. The temple-key has a form often seen in representations of priestesses on vases and in sculpture, and a bronze temple-key of this type, in Boston, bears an inscription which shows that it belonged to the temple of Artemis at Lousoi in Arcadia (ΤΑΣΑΡΤΑΜΙΤΟΣ: ΤΑΣΕΝΛΟΥΣΟΙΣ).2 For the pomegranate head of the key on our vase compare the key figured on the gravestone of Habryllis, priestess of Athena Polias at Athens in the second century B.C.3 The figures on the left and right of the picture were called Zeus and Hera by Petersen, and all subsequent writers have followed him. Zeus and Hera would be perfectly in place, but the artist has not in any way characterized the figures as Hera and Zeus, and must surely have intended them for the father and mother of Io, whether he would have been able to name them or not: Inachos, and Melia (or Argeia). The altar is drawn in the same way as here on a hydria of the same type in Indianapolis, which was attributed to an undetermined mannerist in ARV., but is in fact by the Agrigento Painter.4 There is little relief-contour. Brown is used for most of the details on the heifer, for a line on the belly of Argos, for the marks on his hat, for the necklace; a brown wash covers the goatskin, with darker markings on it; the lower side of Hermes' petasos-brim is also washed with brown. Red for the wreath of Hermes, his petasos-cord, his baldrick, for the head-fillets of the two left-hand figures, for the plants; a red line runs round the neck of the vase. This is very much a subject-piece. The stumpy figures have a not very sharp-witted look, like all our painter's persons. For other pictures of the Death of Argos see Engelmann in Jb. 18 pp. 37-58; and ARV.1 p. 9795 and ARV.2 p. 1722.Johnson 1938, p. 352; Metzger 1951, p. 339, note 8; Palmer 1962, pp. 60-62, fig. 47; Zanker 1965, p. 37, note 153 (as 08.471); Para., p. 391, no. 84; Boardman 1975, pp. 180, 184 (fig. 327), 225, 247; D. A. Amyx, Arch News 8 (1979) (Tallahassee), pp. 107 (fig. 18), 115 (note 57); Brommer 1980, p. 31, no. B 4; Palagia 1980, p. 40; Schefold 1981, pp. 135 (fig. 175), 367; J. H. Oakley, AJA 86 (1982), p. 114, note 16 (as 98.417); Beazley Addenda 1, p. 128; C. Weiss, 1984, Griechische Flussgottheiten in vorhellenistischer Zeit, Wurzburg: K. Triltsch, pp. 109, 216, note 703, pl. 11, 2; E. Simon, AA 1985, p. 273, note 251; N. Yalouris, Iconographie Classique et Identités Régionales (BCH, Suppl. 14, 1986), pp. 6-7 (no. 6), 9, 12; A. Griffiths, JHS 106 (1986), p. 62, note 21; LIMC, IV, 1, p. 717, no. 486, IV, 2, pl. 435, illus. (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); A. M. Giambersio, 1989, Il pittore di Pisticci: Il Mondo e l'opera di un ceramografo della seconda metà del V secolo A.C., Galatina: Congedo, p. 92, note 4; Padgett 1989, p. 100; Beazley Addenda 2, p. 262; J. T. Hooker, JHS 110 (1990), p. 216; J.-M. Moret, RA 1990, p. 4; LIMC, V, 1, p. 356, no. 838 (G. Siebert); LIMC, V, 1, p. 654, no. 2, V, 2, pl. 439, illus. (S. E. Katakis); N. Yalouris, in ibid., pp. 665 (no. 8), 673. Exhibited: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 1988-1991 (Padgett 1988, pp. 38-39, no. 17, 2 illus.); Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1991-.