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

Bloomington 79.35 [Erroneously published as 75.35]

Lent by the Indiana University Art Museum (79.35).

The Vase: h. 7.1 cm; w. 33.6 cm; d. without handles 27.7 cm. Broken and mended from various pieces; some plaster repair with minor in-painting. Bowl slightly warped. Brownish-black glaze streaky in places. Flaking of glaze, especially on tondo figure, and applied colors.

Decoration: Animal frieze: on the exterior, striding lion (r.) grazing deer (l.) goose(?) (r.), striding panther (l.), swan (r.), striding panther (r.), and grazing deer (l.). Field ornaments consist of wedge-filled crosses, palmette-lotusbud combinations, a dotted circle, globular "star," and a row of chevrons, all lacking incision. In the tondo, a crouching, raised-winged Sphinx (r.) with head turned backwards. The tail of this creature partially disappears beyond the tondo border before reappearing. Added red: sparsely on wings, quadrupeds' haunches or shoulders and headband of Sphinx. Added white: on wings, and on the snouts and bellylines of panthers. Dilute glaze: double lines flanking animal frieze. Vertical bars on rim. One red line encircles the tondo. Outside of handles and flanking projections glazed.

This vase belongs to a sizeable category of Boeotian black-figure lekanai decorated by a number of different painters (AJA 81 [1977] 55-65). These vases are predominately decorated in an animal style with creatures both real and fantastic, though some display continuous floral designs. Human figures are rare. The animal style, although originally Corinthian, was imitated by Boeotian artists from Attic models. The Boeotian field ornaments, however, are predominantly alien to these mainland styles and indicate a connection with East Greek pottery — particularly Fikellura ware (AJA 81 [1977] 64-65).

Ure (MMS 4 [1932] 18-38) divided these lekanai into two groups, the first being slightly more refined and diversified and somewhat earlier than the second. The choice and rendering of the subsidiary ornament on the Indiana lekane would make it a transitional piece between the two groups.

The Indiana lekane was decorated by the Minotaur Painter whose work is known only by this vase and the name vase in Athens (Athens, NM 13919; Ure, supra, p. 28, no. 21 and figs. 21-22). The tondo of the Athens lekane with the Minotaur without Theseus is among the very rare examples in Greek black-figure vases of this depiction (Brommer 1973, 238 and 242), and further indicates the Painter's dependence on Attic formulae for inspiration. The painter style of the Minotaur Painter, as exhibited on these two vases, is relatively clean and displays a moderate taste for exactness which too often was ignored by a number of his colleagues.

Bibliography

Karl Kilinski II, Southern Methodist University