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

Bloomington 72.97.4

Lent by the Indiana University Art Museum; Evan F. Lilly Memorial (7.2.97.4).

The Vase: H. 18.9 cm; D. 31.6 cm; W. 41.0 cm; D. of foot 14.0 cm; liquid contents ca. 4.4 liters. Dense, fine clay with tight structure, few pores, some inclusions and lime impurities. 2.5 YR 7/8 light red (Munsell). The kylix has been reconstituted from a number of large fragments and some minor restorations have been made in plaster. The most noticeable loss is the gap over the right chariot on Side B, where the heads of some figures are missing. Added red and white is in generally poor to fair condition, although some small areas remain fresh. The dense glaze is of a saturated black color, in places shading towards a dark brown to brown. The added white has widely faded, however the red is generally in good condition.

The cup rests on a high stem with a wide, splayed disk foot. Its hollowed underside rises in a steady curve from the resting surface all the way to the bottom of the basin. The disk's slightly concave exterior edge has been precisely molded, forming a gentle ridge around the upper circumference of the foot. A shallow molding separates stem and basin; the latter curves broadly outwards, changing into the almost vertical rim with thickened lip. The round handles curve upwards and out, the left one (from Side A) hangs a bit low, the apex of the right one exceeds the height of the lip.

With the exception of the underside and exterior edge of the foot, and a reserved band low around the basin, the whole vessel is glazed. Small areas are left reserved: the inside of the handles as well as their attachment panels, a narrow band encircling the lip, and the interior bottom, where a large reserved circle encompasses a smaller one with a second, broader circle around it.

Decoration: The figurative decoration of the band cup consists of a total of 69 human figures, four chariots and 16 horses. The participants are more or less evenly distributed between sides A and B; large sub-divisions, marked only by a change of direction in various figures' gazes, punctuate the rather uniform line of figures.

The procession on either side crowds around and between two quadrigas whose horses stand among the file of participants. Each side is organized in a slightly different fashion, however. Side A: shows a woman who unveils herself in the very center of the composition, framed symmetrically by four participants who look at her. The remaining segments of Side A are filled with persons facing various directions, usually at least two of them gazing the same way. Towards the handles the composition seems to open up slightly; here more loosely spaced groups of four look from the handles towards the middle. Side B: a similar arrangement has been chosen for the groups near the handles. However, through the insertion of two grooms in clearly defined interstices before each chariot, the main rhythm of the composition of Side B compared to Side A has been changed. Its basic components are the two frieze sections starting at the left side and flowing all the way over to the right where the second chariot is met by a group of onlookers moving to the left, that is, away from the handles.

The principal effect of this colorful tour de force in miniature rests on the simple design of the figures, which are often outlined only roughly in silhouette, to be refined in their appearance through the use of incision and added color. A case in point is the central group of nine figures on Side A. At the center stands a woman facing left. With her right hand, which also holds a dot-wreath, she lifts her cloak which covers the back of her head and unveils her face. Her forward left hand appears under her left breast, hardly distinguishable among the scale-pattern on her peplos. The fold of the peplos at her waist is rendered by a double incised line, as is the lower hem above her ankles. A white chiton falls from beneath the peplos, covering most of her elongated feet; some of the white glaze is gone. The face is set off in a rather unbecoming "pig-headed" profile, reserved against the added red of the cloak but certainly once executed in added white. As a matter of course, this painter seems not to use incision for human profiles; the only notable exception to this is the hooked nose of the white clad charioteer on the right chariot, Side A.

Within the woman's face a thin incised line renders the large, flat, triangular eye; this treatment of the eye is repeated in another female figure, the third on her left. The hairline of the central woman, rather carelessly done, frames a low forehead. It continues around a cursorily executed ear to fall to the shoulder. A short line indicates the tug of the cloak under the left axle, longer incised lines mark the protrusion of the left arm and the drape of the cloak, ending in two double-border lines. The same sketchiness and looseness characterizes the lines which outline her body profile and the line of her cloak as it touches the sleeve of the older man facing her. Two quick strokes of added red on her head indicate a wreath.

On either side the woman is flanked by four figures: two men, a woman and again a man, all facing her. The males carry spears before them, holding them staff-like in their right hands. The persons framing the unveiling woman are typical of all the figures encircling the band cup. The bodies appear slender and almost planklike under their garments; the feet are long, thin, and barely articulated.

To a large degree the representational effect depends on the incisions. They serve, in the first place, to separate the bodies, whose primary drawing is very sketchy. Firm, angular, incised lines help to differentiate larger color design patterns, mostly for the wide, flowing subdivisions of the cloaks. The coloring remains simple; it usually consists of large segments of added red or of agglomerations of sizeable dots of the same color. The dividing line between neck and garment is either single or double without a consistent pattern.

The women's faces were originally executed in added white. The woman to the right shows a fine "ghost" of such an original silhouette; even better preserved is the face of the girl in the group to the left, which clearly shows the rather large face with long nose, the finely outlined eyes, and the strong jawline. The hair of both females flows down over the shoulder in open waves, longer with the figure at the left, short and narrower at the right. Like the central figure, both women wear a wreath rendered by two short strokes in added red.

The male heads, frequently with their hair in added red, fall into two basic categories, bearded and unbearded. For the youthful faces one usually finds one more-or-less continuous line from the forehead around the ear down to the neck, separating face and scalp. A short, comma-like stroke indicates the anatomical details of the ear. The eye is seen frontally, ranging in form from almost round to almond-shaped. A single short line (sometimes two) forms the mouth; the same holds true for the eyebrows. In the bearded faces the line from the forehead bends in front of the ear and continues to outline the inner face against the beard. The ear, often much more carefully done on bearded men than on younger men, is clearly defined and curved. Its outline touches the lower border of the beard; the hairline at the neck often joins it as well. Sometimes the lower edge of the beard may be either omitted or it may be formed by a series of short, curved strokes, conveying curling, unruly hair. This design along the jaw of the second man to the left of the unveiling woman might portray a newly sprouted beard.

Other noticeable figures, on both Sides A and B, are the charioteers, all dressed in the customary long garb. The right charioteer (Side A) has its added white rather well-preserved and the original effect of the cloth and its drape is clearest here. The two nude figures of the grooms in front of the horses on Side B are swiftly drawn. Their small, rather short torsos rest on heavy, long thighs which are set on short lower legs. The thighs are separated by incised lines; the central thigh muscle, some body musculature, and the arms have also been rendered by incised line.

The horses of the four chariots, all somewhat different, show a nervous liveliness, their well-articulated legs in a colorful multitude of positions. The rendering of the animals is generally more exacting than that of the humans, and the details seem to have been carried out with greater care. A long line marks the musculature along the belly, curved lines paralleled by bands in added red mark the hindquarters, and similar markings occur also on the chest. The manes have either been laid out in smooth added red so that they stand up in short, bristly strokes, or they fall over the side of the neck in tidy strands with the lower edges outlined in a wiggly manner. The bit in the mouth and the large, round eye in a well-defined socket area are the main features in the bridled heads. some horses' necks are set off in added red; other noticeable use of decoration occurs in the small scalelike incisions of the harness.

It is not clear whether this richly decorated frieze tells a story or whether it is a general representation, like an unidentified wedding or procession. For example, women lifting their veils appear commonly in marriage scenes: cf. a kylix by the Amasis Painter (Karouzou 1956, pl. 12) where the bride, like the central figure on Side A, also holds a wreath. However, the size of the crowd, the presence of four chariots (rather than only one) may indicate that the event is a procession or assembly, the meaning of which is still to be uncovered. The four quadrigae seem to play an important role; all of them carry an older charioteer together with a youth who, clad in a long cloak, stands between the former's outstretched arms. The youths all seem to hold a whip or stave in their right hands, projecting from their cloaks. Also characteristic of a procession is the rather rigid presentation of the other participants, which lends a certain hieratic, formal air to the whole scene. The very evenly rhythmic composition of the frieze, employing carefully designed groupings of figures, further indicates that the artist wanted to capture a particular spirit for which he went into painstaking detail.

This band cup is a fine example of the Little Master Cups which flourished around the middle of the sixth century and thereafter (cf. Beazley 1951, 52-56; Boardman 1974, pls. 114, 116-117). However, with the tight planning of its figurative decoration and the precise placing of its figures, it remains unusual within this group. Normally, Little Master Cups employ a freer use of space (see Columbia 69.111), often placing figures in an almost gem-like manner against the void of the background as on cups by the Amasis Painter in Madrid and Cracow (von Bothmer 1971, pls. 24, 25). But despite the seemingly monotone rhythm of the frieze and the plethora of figures, the painter succeeded in supplying his figures with a certain liveliness, relying for this effect upon a great variety of facial expressions.

In shape, the band cup resembles quite closely two in Munich:Munich 2243, signed by Archikles and Glaukytes (Arias & Hirmer 1962, pl. 50, and Munich 2238, Greifenhagen 1971, 85, figs. 7, 8). The latter has a similar foot; its painting, furthermore, conveys a related tendency towards crowding, as in the frieze, although the action is-on one side-considerably more agitated.

Wolf Rudolph, Indiana University