Chicago
1889.22
Attic Red-Figure Stamnos
The Chicago Painter
ca. 450 B.C.
The Art Institute of Chicago; gift of P.D. Armour and C.L.
Hutchinson, 1889 (1889.22). Believed to have been found at Capua in 1884 and
bought at Naples in 1890.
The Vase: h. 37.0 cm; d. of mouth
20.2 cm; d. of rim 21.1 cm; w. with handles 41.9 cm; max. d. 30.9 cm at 26.0 cm
from base; d. of foot 14.3 cm. Broken and mended, the missing pieces and cracks
filled with plaster. There is some painted restoration in parts of the egg and
dot and palmette decoration around the handles, and particularly in the figures
of the obverse: on the figure at left, some lines of the drapery and parts of
the lines on her lower right hand and finger; on the central figure, the fingers
of her left hand, the lower part of the ivy wreath, some lines of the drapery;
on the figure at right, her third finger and part of the base of her thumb, and
some lines of the drapery. On the reverse, there are filled gaps but no
repainting of lines: of the figure at left, the right hand is missing; the chin
and neck, the right arm and hand, and a central section of the thyrsos of the
central figure are missing; a section of the neck and parts of the drapery of
the figure at right are missing. Inside, the neck is shiny black, the vase matt
black. Red wash covers all the reserved areas of the vase except below the foot;
this shows particularly well on the outside of the foot, which has fired a
pink-red while the reserved areas of the figured and floral zones have fired
very orange; burnishing perhaps accounts for the difference in color. The lip of
the stamnos is grooved above and below; a fillet bordered by tooled grooves
joins neck and shoulder; there is a grooved line at join of body and foot and a
groove around the upper edge of the foot. The side of the thick disk foot is
reserved. The neck and handles are black.
Decoration: The decoration of the
vase, including the handle-florals, concentrates on verticals. Bands of egg and
dot surround the rim and roots of the handles. There are tongues about the
shoulder at the join of neck and body. A band of meander and cross-square runs
below the figured zone all around the vase. Palmette-trees compose the
handle-floral. From a stem at the base-line below each handle, tendrils issue
upward, giving out a spiral and encircled palmettes: three palmettes below, and
two above the handle. In every case the middle leaf of the palmette protrudes
spear-like over the encircling tendril. At the handle A/B the tendril at left
gives off a spiral before encircling its terminating palmette, at the handle B/A
the tendril gives off a spiral and a lotusbud. The decorative base-line is
composed of groups of two stopped meanders to left separated by single
cross-squares. The cross-squares on the obverse have the corners filled by black
dots, with smaller dots between them opposite the cross-bars, leaving a
dentilated area around the cross. The pattern varies under the reverse picture,
where the first three cross-squares have only the corners dotted with black, and
the two cross-squares at right, dentilated as those on the obverse, are
separated by three meanders, not two.
Side A: Dionysiac festivities,
enacted by maenads, or women as maenads. A maenad, dressed in the Doric chiton,
open at the side with a belted over-fold, stands frontal. She is placing an ivy
wreath on a stamnos held out to her by a maenad at left dressed in chiton and
himation. Notice that the wreath is reserved on the black background, black
where it crosses the pictured vase. The women stand in front of a table which
shows between them, and on which are set an apple and a kantharos. Another
maenad stands frontal to right, head turned toward her companion, a thyrsos held
upright in her right hand. She wears chiton and himation. The maenad at left has
her hair bound up with three ties, the maenad at right wears an ivy wreath. The
central figure has a disk earring.
Side B:
Three women or maenads dressed in chiton and himation stand quietly, the one at
left holding up a drinking horn, the central one standing frontal, a thyrsos
held upright in her right hand, the one at right enveloped in her himation and
holding it up from underneath. The central figure has her hair bound up with a
broad band decorated with four leaves, the figure at right has her long hair
tied back in a pony-tail.
Sketch lines are visible on all figures, showing lines of faces,
limbs, bodies beneath the drapery, drapery pleats. The stamnos and table on the
observe were also sketched in. One mark, possibly accidental, may indicate that
the right arm of the figure at left on the obverse was first meant to be raised
at a more acute angle. Relief outline is used extensively for floral, egg and
dot, and tongue decoration, but is rare elsewhere: the right profile of the
stamnos, and all of the table, are outlined, but of the figures in general only
parts of the arms and hands are outlined. Only the buttock of the figure at left
on the reverse is outlined. Around the faces it is hard to tell in some cases if
a nose or chin were done in relief. The accuracy of the broad preliminary
outline is such that the effect is almost as sharp as relief. The broad outlines
are particularly obvious on the reverse, where the background, except for the
outline, has fired greenish.
Graffiti: on the sloping underside of the foot:
Α (with two bars at the top). There are 42
parallel marks on the narrow resting surface of the foot, apparently
intentional, possibly counting-strokes.
Vase-painting took several directions in the middle of the fifth
century. One was that of the Niobid Painter, whose work has been seen to reflect
the monumental painting of the time (see
University
of Chicago 1967.115.60). The Chicago Painter's vases represent another
direction, the so-called "academic" wing of the Villa Giulia Painter, who is
connected with the followers of Douris, and whom our artist followed. The
Methyse Painter, whose work is shown here, (
Cincinnati 1962.386-388), follows the same path (see also
Chicago 1892.125 by the Euaion Painter).
Wild excitement, violent movement, the clash of armor, were not for
the Chicago Painter. He continues the art of the Villa Giulia Painter "in a
softened and more elegant", "a somewhat freer and tenderer form" (
Beazley 1918, 154 and
ARV2, 628). Though he did some kraters, some pelikai,
some hydriai, and a few smaller vases, we have mostly stamnoi from him.
Mythological scenes, pursuits, departures occur in his work, but the stamnoi by
him are mainly devoted to Dionysiac scenes. There are three such stamnoi in the
Midwest: this, his namepiece, the St. Louis stamnos (
St. Louis 15.1951), and one in Minneapolis (
ARV2, 631, no. 1). "Dionysiac" in the
late archaic period would bring to mind the cavorting satyrs and whirling
maenads of Dionysos' retinue.
Here rather (and on the St. Louis vase) are Athenian matrons as
maenads, celebrating some rite in honor of Dionysos. There is a series of
stamnoi with such scenes, beginning with those of the Villa Giulia Painter (see
Shefton in
Arias & Hirmer 1962,
374). Some show the figures with an idol of Dionysos, some show them
ladling wine, some show them dancing (as on the St. Louis stamnos,
St. Louis 15.1951). There has been much
discussion over the nature of the celebration, and whether all such paintings
show the same festival, and whether the participants are women or maenads.
Arguments have been put forward for the Lenaia, celebrated in early spring, and
the Anthesteria, celebrated in autumn. B. Philippaki, who studied the shape in
Philippaki 1967 (the following
observations are to be found in the introduction, xviii to xxi), tends toward a
more general interpretation of the scenes: women celebrating private rites to
Dionysos in the autumn. She observed that stamnoi are only shown in pictures
painted on stamnoi (and that their particular shape corresponds to that of the
actual vase on which they appear); since, however, similar Dionysiac
representations appear on other shapes, where shapes other than stamnoi are
shown in use, the stamnos need not have been sacred to Dionysos. Our vase and
the St. Louis vase,
St. Louis 15.1951, were
both obtained in Naples and thought to have been found in Capua. Philippaki
found that a surprisingly small number of examples of the shape were found in
Greece. Perhaps the festival portrayed is one which the Greeks of South Italy
celebrated. According to Philippaki, the stamnoi of the Chicago Painter were all
painted within a short period of time around the middle of the century and all
are of one type. This type is shared by certain stamnoi of the Villa Giulia
Painter, to whose stylistic group the Chicago Painter belongs. Philippaki raises
the possibility that these were perhaps made in the same workshop as stamnoi by
the Deepdene and Eupolis Painters, although unrelated stylistically to them
(
Philippaki 1967, p. 110ff. and
114). It is interesting that the graffito under the foot (incomplete in
Philippaki 1967, fig. 15, where
only the A is shown) is similar to one under the foot of a stamnos by the
Deepdene Painter, which Richter interpreted as a monogram presumably indicating
a name beginning "AG ..." (
Richter &
Hall 1936, v. 1,222, fig. 34, no. 83;
Philippaki 1967, p. 80 and fig. 14,
ARV2, 498, no. 2 also found in Capua).
Since a lid is easily lost or separated from its vase in the course
of centuries (indeed, in its own useful lifetime), we are accustomed to seeing
the Greek vase without its intended cover which the potter and painter had
counted as one in their designs (cf.
von
Bothmer in Gnomon 39 [1967] 814). The
stamnos was a covered vase and St. Louis is fortunate in having both parts (
St. Louis 15.1951). We are fortunate in being
able to show the two vases together, so that shape, style, and subject may be
compared and fully appreciated.
For the style of the Chicago Painter, see
Grossman 1955, pp. 15-24. There is an oinochoe,
Chicago 1907.12, by an imitator of the Chicago
Painter, the Painter of Naples 3136 (
ARV2,
632, no. 2).
Bibliography
FR, 247, no. 5, also
published in
Kleine
Schriften ii (Munich 1913) 492, no. 5;
A. Frickenhaus, Lenäenvasen (Berlin 1912) 13f., 38, no. 25, and pl.
1v;
A.E., "Vase Paintings by
the Master of the Rustic Dionysia," Bulletin of
the Art Institute of Chicago 9, no. 4 (April, 1915)
52ff;
Beazley 1918, 155, no.
1;
Hoppin 1919, i 193, no.
3;
Hereford 1919, 36, and pl. 1, d.
AV 353, below, no. 1;
Caskey
& Beazley, i 37;
ARV1,
407, below, no. 1;
Grossman
1955, 20;
ARV2, 628, no. 4
B;
Philippaki 1967, 111f., and fig.
15.
Louise Berge
