Italiano
Negrito
Candy
Krater
Crater
Rincón de la Vieja
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Psalm32:11
"Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart."
"The troops, sifting through the forest"~~~Stephen Crane
"a language which constantly tempts the user away from dispassionate exposition into sarcasm and diatribe"~~~T.S. Eliot
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) has agreed to
return a 5th century B.C. red-figure volute krater
(a vessel used to mix water and wine) that was part of Giacomo Medici’s
hoard of looted antiquities to Italy. The museum purchased it from
antiquities dealer/high society fence Robin Symes in 1983.
'Tarde de Merienda' de Adrián Gómez
La niña rubia y la muchacha negra, 1968
Jorge Gallardo
Óleo sobre tela
134 x 73 cms
Retrato de identidad. El fisgón y El secreto forman parte de la
obra de Leonel González. Imágenes tomadas del Facebook de Leonel
González
Rincón de la Vieja, active andesitic complex volcano, Costa Rica
Chess: "Italiano" "Negrito" "Candy" "Krater" "Crater" "Rincón de la Vieja" "Minneapolis" "Minnesota"
| Title |
: An Attic Red-Figure Volute Krater
|
| Author |
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
|
| Date |
1983
|
| Institution |
Minneapolis Institute of Arts |
In ancient Greece, the
production of painted ceramic vessels reached its apogee in Athenian
workshops of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. Although The Minneapolis
Institute of Arts possesses two fine black-figure vases,
1
the Attic red-figure technique, which largely superseded black-figure by
the end of the sixth century, was not well represented in the
collection
2 until the recent accession of a handsome volute krater, made in Athens between 460 and 450 B.C.
3Kraters were used to mix wine with water and thus served as the centerpieces at lively drinking parties (
symposia).
The ancient name of the volute krater is unknown, but scholars have
seen in its coiled handles an echo of the volutes (scroll-like
ornaments) on Ionic capitals. The volute krater shape is relatively
uncommon, though not rare, accounting for only a small percentage of the
many thousands of known Attic vases. Among the earliest—and
best—surviving Attic volute kraters is the black-figure “François Vase”
of about 565 B.C., one of the great monuments of archaic Greek art.
4
Nearly two hundred other Attic black-figure volute kraters are known,
most of them fragmentary and the majority dating to the last twenty
years of the sixth century.
5 About forty red-figure examples have been attributed to various archaic painters, such as Euphronios,
6
but the true heyday of the volute krater is the Early Classical Period
of the second quarter of the fifth century, when Spina, Felsina
(Bologna), and other Italian towns trading in the Adriatic developed a
particular fondness for them.
7 By the fourth century,
red-figure volute kraters were no longer produced in mainland Greece,
but had reached the height of their popularity in the Apulian vases of
South Italy.
8The basic components of the volute krater
remained essentially unchanged over time: flanged handles rising from
cylindrical arches on the shoulder to coil atop the rim; a fairly flat
shoulder and wide neck; the mouth divided into two or more zones,
evoking an ensemble of cornice and frieze. The François Vase is nearly
as wide as it is tall, and later black-figure examples are only slightly
more slender. The Berlin Painter's “kingly” red-figure krater in
London, with a 4:3 height-to-width ratio, represents perhaps the most
perfect formal balance achieved in the evolution of the shape.
9
The canonical early Classical type is more slender, nearly half again
as tall as it is wide, with a correspondingly narrower mouth. The
Minneapolis krater is of this type, but its fluid lines and rational
proportions distinguish it from many of its more mannered
contemporaries. Its closest parallels are found among works by the Group
of the Niobid Painter,
10 although none has quite the same
combination of tall neck and simple, bifurcated rim.Although the
Institute's vase is signed by neither potter nor painter, the figure
decoration has been attributed to an artist whom Sir John Beazley named
the Methyse Painter,
11 after a maenad (female follower of Dionysos) on a bell krater in New York.
12
Beazley attributed twelve vases, none a volute krater, to the Methyse
Painter, and thought that another five were probably also by him.
13
Dietrich von Bothmer has since added to the corpus an unpublished
volute krater in Ancona, which differs from the Minneapolis vase in
profile, ornament, and the use of white ground on the neck.
14 Adrienne Lezzi-Hafter recognized the painter's hand on a
kalpis (water jug) formerly on the art market in Switzerland and also believes him responsible for an
oinochoe (pitcher) in a Swiss private collection.
15The
Methyse Painter favored kraters and other large shapes, but eschewed
cups and amphorae. In his preferences, he followed a more prolific
associate known as the Chicago Painter, who like the Methyse Painter was
strongly influenced by the Villa Giulia Painter.
16 Fragments of a volute krater painted by the latter are preserved in Halle,
17
but its profile cannot be reconstructed for comparison. The same holds
true for the fragments of a volute krater in Leningrad by the Chicago
Painter,
18 but this other complete example, in Ferrara,
19
with its slender body and enormous foot, demonstrates the variety
possible within a single workshop.The Minneapolis vase, like the Methyse
Painter's Ancona krater, has a zone of fifty “rays” above the fillet
separating the body from the foot. The latter is in two degrees, with a
rounded profile and reserved riser. At the base of the figure frieze is a
band consisting of groups of three maeanders alternating with saltires.
On the shoulder, at the base of the neck, a band of black “tongues”
extends from handle to handle on either side. Unlike most Early
Classical volute kraters, the neck is painted black, a feature adding
cadence to the decorative scheme and recalling the austere grandeur of
the Berlin Painter's Triptolemos krater in Karlsruhe.
20 The
mouth is in two degrees, with a wide lotus-and-palmette frieze
supporting a row of “eggs” on the edge of the rim. A band of eggs
surrounds the root of each handle, as on the artist's name-vase.
21
The handle ornament, with vines of ivy on each flange and the
interstices painted red, is canonical for volute kraters of the period.
22On
the obverse of the vase—the side with more detailed decoration—the
lotus-and-palmette chain is doubled, with each addorsed floral pair
adjoining a common tendril.
23 On the reverse, there is a single row of larger lotuses and palmettes, with the latter segregated in encircling tendrils.
24 The division of the vase into two sides is further accentuated by the placement of a “palmette tree” under each handle.
25
This type of palmette, in which the tendril emerges from the baseline
to spiral upward in an asymmetrical manner, is not otherwise employed by
the Methyse Painter, but is common on the
stamnoi (wine jars) of the Chicago Painter.
26 Its appearance on a volute krater is unusual.
27Dionysos
appears amid his entourage of satyrs and maenads on the obverse of the
vase. The scene is a very common one, both in red-figure and
black-figure wares. Unlike the artist's New York and Ancona kraters,
where the woozy wine god leans heavily on a bearded “midget-satyr,”
Dionysos here strides forward unassisted, turning back for a drink from
his two-handled
kantharos. A head taller than his followers, the god wears a long linen
chiton and a woolen
himation. Long corkscrew tresses fall across the pleated garments, and a crown of ivy mirrors the leafy
thyrsos in his hand.
28
Before him, a satyr brandishing a lyre wheels about to touch his
master's arm. His goggle-eyed expression, rendered in three-quarter
view,
29 suggests that he is too drunk to play his instrument. The source of the satyr's inebriation is the wineskin flung about by the
chiton-clad
maenad at right, who kicks up her heels in ecstatic dance. She wears an
ivy wreath and has her hair tied up in back with a white fillet. A
similar coiffure is affected by the maenad at left, who with one hand
holds a
thyrsos and with the other clutches the leg of the little satyr-boy riding on her shoulders. The fawnskin she wears over her
chiton
is the remnant of some nocturnal hunt, when she and her sisters coursed
through the hills in a bacchic frenzy, tearing to pieces the creatures
that crossed their path. A maenad on the Methyse Painter's Louvre
stamnos wears a similar skin,
30 but the figures closest in spirit and detail are the maenads on his fragmentary
dinos (a type of globular krater) from Spina.
31 Our statuesque bacchante, with her flowing
chiton and hooded eyes, could join the Spina procession unnoticed, equipped even with identical
thyrsos
and fawnskin.The maenad with the fawnskin is representative of the many
women adorning the vases of the Methyse Painter and imparting to his
scenes of genre, myth, and bacchic cult a quiet elegance that foretells
the coming of the Classical style. For pure quality of line, however,
the maenad is surpassed by the satyr following her at the end of the
procession. Lithe yet muscular, his eyes and cheeks bulging
dramatically, he sets the tune for the dance on his double flute (
aulos). Like the satyr with the lyre, the piper wears a thick white headband stuffed with straw or flowers,
32
and his penis is infibulated to keep out dirt and prevent an untimely
erection.Of all the figures in the procession, the most intriguing is
the little boy, whose balding pate, pointed ears, and stubby tail are
proof of his membership in the libidinous fraternity of satyrs. The
stature of the bearded “midget-satyrs” on the Methyse Painter's New York
and Ancona kraters may have been dictated by their role as props for
the drunken Dionysos,
33 but this little fellow is clearly a
child. Child satyrs are not mentioned in ancient literature, but they
are represented on more than a hundred Athenian vases of the fifth
century.
34 One of the earliest (490-480 B.C.) is “Flying
Angel,” the name Beazley gave to the satyr-boy on an amphora in Boston,
the name-vase of the Flying Angel Painter.
35 Here it is not a
maenad, but an adult satyr who gives the boy a lift, the better to see
the large model phallus carried by the satyr on the reverse.
36
The father-son relationship implied here is strengthened by other
scenes of adult satyrs holding or preparing to hold satyr-boys. On a cup
in Berlin, and on a white-ground
alabastron (ointment bottle) in
Basel, the child is clearly a toddler, whose father holds him out for
the face-to-face inspection of which new fathers are so fond. This
parental pride is emphasized on both vases by the words
ho pais kalos
(“the boy is handsome”), a very common vase inscription that seldom
relates to the scene it accompanies, but which here takes on real
meaning.
37If these satyrs are parent and child, we may wonder
if the maenad and satyr-boy on the Minneapolis vase share a similar
relationship. Female satyrs are exceedingly rare
38 and,
indeed, would have been superfluous amid so many nymphs and maenads.
Hesiod declared that the satyrs were the brothers of the mountain
nymphs,
39 which is rather inconvenient when we consider their
later amorous relations. The result of their liaisons is clearly stated
in a fragment of an anonymous satyr-play about Oineus, in which the
satyr chorus announces, “We are the children of nymphs.”
40 By the mid-sixth century, the
nymphai
on the François Vase and other early vases depicting the followers of
Dionysos were largely supplanted by females wearing skins, carrying
snakes and
thyrsoi, and dancing about in wine-crazed ecstasy. These “maenads,” or
bakchai, can be called “nymphs” only in the broadest sense of the word.
41
They are pursued relentlessly by satyrs and frequently molested, but
though often caught, are seldom depicted in full submission.
42 By the early fifth century, the maenads often vigorously resist their pursuers,
43
but the child satyrs and satyr “families” that begin to appear at this
time indicate that artists did not imagine the maenads to be always
effective in their resistance.We have seen a satyr-boy carried by a
satyr,
44 but although human children are occasionally shown riding on the backs of their mothers or other women,
45
the pairing of maenad and satyr-boy is apparently unique. One of the
maenads on a volute krater in Bologna carries a child in this way, but
the boy has none of the characteristics of a satyr.
46 The Bologna child is part of a procession accompanying the return to Olympos of Hephaistos, god of fire,
47
and thus, like the Minneapolis satyr-boy, he is not threatened by
dismemberment, the fate awaiting the infant on the bronze Derveni
krater, and his counterpart on a
pyxis (toilet box) in London.
48 The maenads who fling these little boys about so carelessly have been crazed by Dionysos. In the
Bacchae,
Euripides tells how the Theban women snatched babies from the houses of
Hysiae and Erythrae and were later cleansed of blood by miraculous
fountains and licking snakes.
49 The Bologna maenad, however, seems more akin to the bacchante described by Nonnus in his
Dionysiaca:
Another snatched from the father a three-year-old child/And
set it upon her shoulder, untrembling, unshaken, unbound,/Balancing the
boy in the wind's charge—there he sat laughing, never falling in the
dust.50
The Minneapolis satyr-boy seems quite happy on his perch; he is no
kidnapped Erythraean. Perhaps, like the Villa Giulia Painter, whose
satyr family in Karlsruhe includes a satyr-boy and a white-haired
Pappasilenos,
51 the Methyse Painter was inspired by a
contemporary satyr play that included in its cast or chorus a
mischievous little satyr. That the artist was familiar with the costumes
and characters of satyric drama is demonstrated by his bell krater from
the Athenian Acropolis, which features a Pappasilenos attired in the
wooly white bodysuit (
mallotos chiton) worn by actors in this role.
52The
scene on the reverse of the krater shows a maenad accosted by two
satyrs and is clearly related to the procession on the front.
53
Reverse scenes usually contain fewer figures and are often painted in a
more summary manner. In this case, there are fewer pleats in the
chiton of the maenad, whose pinwheel pose, with open palm and backward glance, reflects the influence of the Villa Giulia Painter.
54
A certain carelessness is evident in the contours of the satyr at left,
but the head is wonderful, with its long straight hair and the face
showing a comical look of lust.The satyr to the right is executed with
unusual care, with the ribcage described in dilute glaze and the padded
fillet covered with parallel rows of dots. His knitted brows and deep
frown make this satyr the most expressive of all his compatriots, but it
is his stance—leaning back, with right leg extended and left leg bent,
the chin resting on the breast—that is his most interesting feature.
Satyrs in roughly similar postures appear on several Attic vases, nearly
all of them dating to the second half of the fifth century. Bieber saw
that one of these satyrs, on a
dinos in Athens, wears the loincloth and mock phallus of a satyr-actor,
55 and Bates noted others in this pose and costume in the Hope Collection and in the British Museum.
56 From this evidence, it seems clear that this particular pose was derived from the
sikinnis, the dance of the satyrs in the satyr drama.
57 It was long ago noticed that a similar stance is assumed by the so-called Lateran Marsyas, a marble satyr in the Vatican.
58
This statue is generally thought to be a Roman copy of a lost bronze by
Myron, created around the middle of the fifth century B.C.Pliny the
Elder included in his attributions to Myron a group of Athena and
Marsyas, which has often been identified with a group that Pausanias saw
on the Athenian Acropolis.
59 The painting on an
oinochoe
in Berlin is frequently cited as reflecting the composition of Myron's
group, with Athena throwing the rejected pipes before the startled
satyr.
60 The Berlin vase dates to about 430 B.C., when Myron
was probably no longer active. The satyr on the Minneapolis vase is thus
of great interest, not only for its similarity to the Lateran Marsyas,
but also for its contemporaneity with Myron's sculpture. It is tempting
to speculate that the Methyse Painter saw the Marsyas on the Acropolis
and adopted its pose for his own satyr. If so, the Minneapolis satyr
would provide important evidence for dating the original of the Vatican
statue and would strengthen its association with Myron. As attractive as
this theory is, however, it does nothing to counter Rhys Carpenter's
persuasive argument that the anatomy and chiastic torsion of the Lateran
Marsyas are too advanced for a mid-fifth-century date.
61 We
have seen that the stance of both the Minneapolis and Vatican satyrs was
commonly employed by satyric actors. Bates may thus have been right in
suggesting that the Lateran Marsyas was directly inspired by the satyr
drama,
62 and it would not be surprising if the Institute's satyr (and satyr-boy) were the result of a similar inspiration.
Michael Padgett
is an assistant in the Department of Classical Art, Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, and is completing a doctoral dissertation in the
Department of Fine Arts at Harvard University.I am grateful to my wife,
Judy, for her support in writing this paper, to Michael Conforti for
asking me to write it, to William Heidrich, chief curator of the Memphis
Brooks Museum of Art, for information about the vase's dimensions and
the nature of the sketch and relief lines, and to Emily Vermeule,
Dietrich von Bothmer, Mary Comstock, and Herbert Cahn, who read the
initial draft of this article and shared with me their views on several
of the vases mentioned here.
Endnotes
- A neck amphora by the Painter of Vatican 359 (57.1), and a hydria by
the Antimenes Painter (61.59). For the amphora, see J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena (Oxford, 1971), 59, 2; and Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 47, no. 3 (1958): 40-41. For the hydria, see Beazley, Paralipomena, 119, 8ter; and Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 51, no. 1 (1962): 8-11.
- The Institute has two other red-figure vases: an unpublished type-C
kylix attributed to the Villa Giulia Painter (62.41), and a lekythos in
the manner of the Meidias Painter (57.41.1). For the lekythos, see J.D.
Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painter, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1963) [hereafter ARV] 1326, 74; and C. Boulter, Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin
48, no. 3 (1959): 14-15. The collection also includes three
white-ground lekythoi, one of which (26.7) I attribute to the Carlsberg
Painter; see Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 15, no. 10 (1926): 46.
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald C. Dayton, 83.80. Dimensions:
Height with handles: 57.5 cm; height to rim: 50.5 cm; diameter at mouth:
34 cm; diameter at shoulder: 35.5 cm; diameter at foot: 19 cm. Ornament:
The top of the rim is reserved, but the neck interior is completely
glazed. The underside of the foot is reserved and has neither dipinti
nor graffiti. Added white is restricted to the fillets of the obverse
satyrs and maenads. There is no added red. Brown dilute glaze is used,
in varying strengths, for the hair, beards, and tails of the satyrs, for
the forehead curls and long tresses of Dionysos, and for the lower
locks of the dancing maenad. A still more dilute golden glaze is used
for the hair of the satyr-boy, the fawnskin, the pupils of Dionysos and
the two obverse satyrs, and to indicate muscles, nipples, and body hair
on the satyrs. Sketch lines are evident in most of the figures, in the
lotus-and-palmette friezes, and in the palmette trees. Relief lines are
used for most internal details of anatomy and drapery, and border each
individual egg, tongue, trendril, and lotus. On the palmettes, only the
central heart and ribbed central leaf are bordered by relief lines,
while the wavy ivy vines on the handles have straight relief lines down
the center. Condition: Except for a crack in one volute and some
surface abrasion (most noticeable on the satyr with the lyre), the vase
is in very good condition. The brown discoloration on Dionysos's
himation is possibly due to an excessive application of yellow ochre.References: Photographs of the obverse have appeared in the “Centennial Accessions” insert in Arts (Minneapolis) 7, no. 3 (March 1984); “La Chronique des Arts,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 103 (March 1984): 20, fig. 126; and in The Art of Collecting (The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1986), 37.
- Florence, Museo Archeologico 4209; J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford, 1956) [hereafter ABV], 76, 1. For complete photographs of the newly-restored vase, see M. Cristofani, Materiali per servire alla storia del vaso François. Bolletino d'arte, serie speciale I (1980).
- For black-figure volute kraters, see K. Hitzl, Die entstehung und
Entwicklung des Volutenkraters von den frühesten Anfangen des
kanonischen Stils in der attisch schwarzfigurigen Vasenmalerei (Frankfurt and Bern, 1982). For corrections and additions to Hitzl, see the review by Dietrich von Bothmer in Gnomon 57 (1985): 66-71.
- For the Euphronios volute krater in Arezzo (Museo Civico 1465), see Beazley, ARV, 15, 6; J. Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Archaic Period (Oxford, 1975), fig. 29.
- For Attic vases from Spina, see N. Alfieri and P.E. Arias, Spina, die neuentdeckte Etruskerstadt und die griechischen Vasen ihrer Grabber (Munich, 1958); and J.D. Beazley, Studi Etruschi, Suppl. 25 (1959), 47-57. For the vases from the Certosa necropolis at Felsina, see G. Pellegrini, Museo Civico de Bologna. Catalogo dei vasi delle necropole felsinee (Bologna, 1912).
- See A.D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1978-1982).
- British Museum E 468; Beazley, ARV, 206, 132, and The Berlin Painter (Mainz, 1974) 6, pls. 29-31.
- For example, a pair from Spina by the Altamura Painter: Ferrara,
Museo Nazionale T.381 VT and T.231 VT (Beazley, ARV, 589, 3 and 590,
10); Alfieri and Arias, Spina, 30-31, pls. 9 and 12-13.
- When Robert Guy saw the krater on the London market, he noted its
resemblance to the style of the Methyse Painter but stopped short of an
attribution. After its acquisition by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
Dietrich von Bothmer examined detailed photographs of the vase and
confirmed an attribution to the Methyse Painter (letter of 17 February
1984). In the author's opinion, the krater is an early work of about
460-55 B.C., contemporary with the dinos from Spina (Ferrara T.374;
Beazley, ARV, 633, 10), and only slightly earlier than the New York
krater.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art 07.286.85; Beazley, ARV 632,3; G. M. A. Richter and E. Hall, Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New Haven, 1936), 140-42, pls. 109-110.
- Beazley, ARV, 632-34 and 1663; Paralipomena, 400.
- Ancona, Museo Civico, from Septempeda, San Severini. See D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford, 1957), 144, no. 32, and 149; J. Mertens, Attic White Ground: Its Development on Shapes Other Than Lekythoi (New York, 1977), 124-25.
- Kalpis: Exhibited at the Swiss Art and Antiques Fair, Basel,
14-22 June 1980 (stand no. 35, checklist no. 107). The subject is an
interior with three women. I am indebted to Herbert Cahn for photographs
of this vase. Oinochoe: A. Lezzi-Hafter, Der Schuwalow-Maler, eine Kannenwerkstatt der Parthenonzeit
(Mainz, 1976), 102, pl. 77, a-f and pl. 177, a-b. I have not seen the
chous in Moscow (Pushkin Museum M 1360) that Cornelia Isler-Kerényi
attributes to the Methyse Painter. A bell krater in a Melbourne private
collection, formerly on the London market (Sotheby's, 5 July 182, no.
391; 12-13 December 1983, no. 315) is a poor, late work by the artist
(attribution by R. Guy). A bell krater recently in the Paris market,
with a seated woman playing a barbiton, is probably another late work
from his hand.
- For the Chicago Painter, see Beazley, ARV, 628-31 and 1662-63; and Paralipomena, 399-400. For the Villa Giulia Painter, see Beazley, ARV 618-26 and 1662; and Paralipomena, 398-99.
- Halle University 92; Beazley, ARV, 620, 27; F. Brommer, Hephaistos, der Schmiedegott in der antiken Kunst (Mainz, 1978), pl. 5, 3.
- In the Hermitage, from Eltegen; Beazley, ARV, 628, 2; P. Ducati, Römische Mitteilungen 21 (1906), pls. 3-4.
- Ferrara, Museo Nazionale T.19 C VP; Beazley, ARV, 628, 1; Alfieri and Arias, Spina, 46-47, pls. 50-53.
- Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, 68.101; Beazley, Paralipomena, 344; E. Simon and M. Hirmer, Die griechischen Vasen (Munich, 1976), 110, pl. 142.
- It is unusual for bands of eggs to surround the handle roots of a
volute krater, but this is common on stamnoi, such as Louvre G 410, by
the Methyse Painter; Beazley, ARV, 633, 8; Corpus Vasorum Antiquorium [hereafter CVA] Louvre, 3, pl. 16, 6 and 9, and pl. 17, 1-3.
- Among the rare exceptions are the Methyse Painter's Ancona krater in
Ancona by the Painter of Bologna 228, both of which have running
spirals on the flanges. For the second krater, see Beazley, ARV, 511, 1;
P. Marconi and L. Serra, Il Museo Nazionale delle Marche in Ancona (Rome, 1935) pl. 51.
- I know of no exact parallel. For a similar arrangement, but with the
addorsed elements separated by distinct tendrils, cf. Ferrara T.381 VT
(see note 10.)
- Cf, the obverse of Ferrara T.213 VT (see note 10), which has a
similar “cornice” of eggs. On the Minneapolis vase, sketch lines in the
center of the obverse lotus-and-palmette frieze closely resemble the
pattern on the reverse, suggesting that the artist originally intended
to put the simpler pattern on both sides. I owe this observation to
William Heidrich.
- For palmette trees, see O. Jacobsthal, Ornamente griechischer Vasen (Berlin, 1927), 81-110.
- For example, his name-vase at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1889.22. See Beazley, ARV, 628, 4; W. Moon, ed., Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections (Art Institute of Chicago, 1979), 197-99, no. 111.
- For a palmette-tree on a calyx krater, cf. Boston, Museum of Fine
Arts 95.23, by the Fröhner Painter; Beazley, ARV, 510, 3; Jacobsthal, Ornamente,
pl. 61, b. A new example of this relatively rare type appears on an
unpublished calyx krater in the Museo Archeologico in Agrigento, here
attributed to the Tyszkiewicz Painter.
- The thyrsos is a long fennel stalk, topped with ivy, that is carried by Dionysos and his followers. The thyrsoi
on the Minneapolis vase are like the one on the reverse of the Methyse
Painter's Louvre stamnos (see note 21). For the clusters of berries amid
the leaves, cf. the thyrsos on the artist's name-vase.
- The type of lyre carried by the satyr is called a barbiton and was apparently the variety favored for Bacchic revels and merrymaking in general. See D. Kurtz and J. Boardman, “Booners,” Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 3
(Malibu, 1986): 62-64. The satyr's gesture is similar to that of a
satyr on a bell krater in Nauplia, which Beazley thought was “probably”
by the Methyse Painter; Beazley, ARV, 633, 1. Foreshortened faces such
as the satyr's are rare before the mid-fifth century. A satyr with barbiton
is rendered in this manner on an oinochoe in Boston by the Chicago
Painter (Museum of Fine Arts 13.197; Beazley, ARV, 630, 37;
Lezzi-Hafter, Schuwalow-Maler, 101, pl. 73, a-b) and on an
amphora in New York by the Oionokles Painter (Metropolitan Museum
09.221.41; Beazley, ARV, 646, 6; Richter and Hall, Red-Figured Athenian Vases,
pl. 32, no. 33). The Chicago and Methyse Painters may have learned the
trick from the Villa Giulia Painter, who paints one of the daughters of
Pelias in this way on a kalpis in Cambridge (Fitzwilliam Museum 12.17; Beazley, ARV, 623, 66; E.M.W. Tillyard, The Hope Vases [Cambridge, 1923], pl. 15, no. 109).
- See note 21. The Louvre fawnskin is dappled, while this one is painted brown with dilute glaze.
- Ferrara, Museo Nazionale T.373 VT; Beazley, ARV, 633, 10; Alfieri and Arias, Spina 46, pls. 45-49.
- See J.D. Beazley, Journal of Hellenic Studies 66 (1946): 11.
- This is how Eldridge explained the similarly employed midget-satyrs
on a pelike in Munich (Beazley, ARV, 1145, 36) and a bell krater
formerly in the Hamilton Collection (Beazley, ARV, 1061, 157), but now
in the British Museum following retrieval from the shipwreck Colossus (L.G. Eldridge, American Journal of Archaeology
21 [1917]: 47). Although compositional expediency can account for most
midget-satyrs, on at least three vases a little bearded satyr is
represented in a manner and context that leave little doubt he is a
child: (1) Boston 00.351 (Beazley, ARV, 723, 1); (2) Athens 12139
(Beazley, ARV 833, 40 and 1672); (3) London E 66 (Beazley, ARV, 808, 2).
- Unfortunately space does not allow a complete list. Child satyrs are briefly discussed by J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vases in American Collections (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), 57; F. Brommer, Satyroi (Würzburg, 1937), 24, 56; F. Brommer, Satyrspiele. Bilder griechischer Vasen, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1959), 38-44; K. Schauenburg, “Dionysiaka,” in Charites. Studien zum Altertumswissenschaft
(Bonn, 1957), 170-71. In the fourth century, there was a shift to a
more youthful, beardless Dionysos and a concomitant favoring of
beardless young satyrs. In the fifth century, however, young satyrs are
an anomaly in need of explanation.
- Museum of Fine Arts 98.882; Beazley, ARV, 279, 7; L. D. Caskey and J. D. Beazley, Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 3 (Boston, 1963): 16-17, pl. 82.
- Beazley was surely correct in identifying this as the phallus
carried in the procession of the Rural Dionysia (Caskey and Beazley, Attic Vase Paintings,
17), but his suggestion that Flying Angel and his “father” were
substitutes for real Athenian spectators can be improved on by comparing
the figures on a black-figure cup in Florence (Museo Archeologico 3897;
L. Deubner, Attische Feste [Berlin, 1932], pl. 22). On the cup,
the satyr and his diminutive (but not satyric) rider accompany the
phallus as it is borne along. The Boston pair are thus not spectators,
but costumed participants in the sacred procession, satyr-actors who, at
the same festival, will soon be taking their antics into the theater.
- Cup: Berlin, Staatliche Museen 2550; CVA, 2, pl. 94, 47. Alabastron:
Basel, collection of Herbert Cahn (HC 542); H. 13.8 cm; unattributed. I
am grateful to Dr. Cahn for giving me photographs of this vase and
allowing me to publish them. The fragment with a satyr leaning on a
stick was published in Hesperia Art Bulletin, no. 19, fig. 120,
and was identified by Dietrich von Bothmer as joining Dr. Cahn's vase.
Other vases depicting a child satyr about to ascend into a parent's arm
include Boston 00.351 (see note 33); University of Leipzig T 527
(Beazley, ARV, 1258); and H. Cahn, HC 156 (Dionysos-Griechische Antiken [Ingelheim and Rhein, 1965], no. 73.
- The only evidence of which I am aware for female satyrs in Attic
vase painting is a pointed-eared maenad on a krater in London (Beazley,
ARV, 1061, 157; see note 33) and a maenad in Vienna identified as
“Satyra” (Kunsthistorisches Museum 1772; Beazley, ARV, 1072, 1). It is
noteworthy that the London maenad is accompanied by a midget-satyr, the
Vienna maenad by a satyr-boy. Perhaps the painter of the Vienna vase was
thinking of the Athenian hetaira Satyra, an associate of Themistocles (Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 13.576.c).
- Quoted by Strabo, 10.3.19.
- Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 8.1083, Fr. 1.
- A woman with Dionysos on a pointed amphora by the Copenhagen Painter
is labeled NYNPHAIA, which could be a proper name (British Museum E
350; Beazley, ARV, 256, 2).
- Cf. University of Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum 252; Beazley,
ABV, 315, 1; and above all, Würzburg 492; Beazley, ARV, 1512, 18.
- This change in character is traced by S. McNally, Arethusa 11 (1978), 101-35.
- In addition to Flying Angel, satyr-boys are carried by satyrs on a
column krater in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (50.8.31; Beazley,
ARV 540; CVA 1, pl. 41) and on an unpublished krater in Naples
(Santangelo 638; Eldridge, American Journal of Archaeology
[1917]: 44, note 20), while on the Niobid Painter's Altamura krater in
London, full-grown satyrs are carried in a game of catch-ball (British
Museum E 467; Beazley, ARV, 601, 23; Brommer, Satyrspiele, 41,
fig. 37). The same ball game is apparently underway on a black-figure
lekythos in Athens, but in that case it is human youths who ride the
satyrs (Kerameikos Museum, 8259; U. Knigge, Kerameikos IX [1976],
pl. 35, no. 183). The boy riding a young satyr in a late Hellenistic
marble group in the Vatican (Helbig, 533) is neither human nor satyr,
but the infant Dionysos (H. Walters, Griechische Gutter [Munich, 1979], pl. 237).
- For instance, on a white-ground lekythos by the Timokrates Painter (Athens 12771; Beazley, ARV, 743, 1; CVA, 1, pl. 3, 3 and 5).
- Bologna, Museo Civico 283; Beazley, ARV, 1151, 1; CVA, 4, pl. 69, 6.
- Satyr-boys appear on at least five vases depicting the return of
Hephaistos: a stamnos in Kassel (Hessisches Landesmuseum T 682; Beazley,
Paralipomena, 445, 7 bis; CVA 1, pl. 34, 1); a chous in New York
(Metropolitan Museum 08.258.22; Beazley, ARV 1249, 12; a skyphos in
Toledo (Toledo Museum of Art 82.88; CVA, 2, pls. 84-7); a column krater
in Ferrara (Museo Nazionale 5012, T.131A; L. Massei, Gli Askoi a figure rosse nei corredi funerari delle Necropoli di Spina
[Milan, 1978]: pl. 10, 1); and a calyx krater in Agrigento (Museo
Archeologico, c. 187; Beazley, ARV, 1347). The composition on the Los
Angeles column krater mentioned above (see note 44) strongly suggests
that Hephaistos was the rider of the donkey at left.
- The Derveni krater is in the Thessaloniki Museum. See G. Bakalakis, The Gilt Bronze Krater from Derveni (Athens, 1972). The pyxis is British Museum E 775; Beazley, ARV, 1328, 92; H.B. Walters, History of Ancient Pottery (New York, 1905), 142, fig. 131.
- Bacchae 751-54; 767-68.
- Dionysiaca 45.294-97; translated by H.J. Rose (Loeb Classical Library, 1940).
- Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, 208 (B3); Beazley, ARV, 618, 3;
CVA 1, pl. 19. Pappasilenos was an older, and thus white-haired, satyr
who functioned as the chief satyric protagonist in a satyr play.
- Athens, Acropolis 751; Beazley, ARV, 633, 4; B. Graef and E. Langlotz, Die antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athens,
2 (Berlin, 1925-33): pl. 64. A horizontal line at the ankle marks the
edge of the suit and shows that a costumed actor is represented.
- A similar scene occupies the reverse of the artist's New York krater
(see note 12), as well as the obverse of a column krater in Rome by the
Villa Giulia Painter (Villa Giulia 3589; Beazley, ARV, 628, 3; CVA, 1,
pl. 9, 3-4).
- For example, cf. the running women on the reverse of Karlsruhe 208
(see note 51). Cf. also the maenad under handle A/B of the Methyse
Painter's New York krater (see note 12).
- Athens 13027; Beazley, ARV, 1180, 2; Bieber, Athenische Mitteilungen 36 (1911), 269-77, pl. 13.
- W. N. Bates, American Journal of Archaeology 20 (1916): 394. See Tillyard, Hope Vases,
79-81, no. 136. The identification of this figure as a satyr-actor is
proved not only by the loincloth, but also by the small stage platform
on which he stands. The present location of this vase is unknown (last
seen over forty years ago on the Paris market). The British Museum vase
is a krater by the Niobid Painter (see note 44). Their horns show that
these are not satyrs but panes.
- On kraters in Oxford (Ashmolean 1937.983; Beazley, ARV, 1153, 13)
and Gotha (Gotha Museum 75; Beazley, ARV, 1334, 19) satyrs assume this
posture in scenes that Beazley believed were inspired by Aischylos's
satyr-play Prometheus Pyrphoros (J.D. Beazley, American Journal of Archaeology
43 [1939]: 618-39, pls. 13-14). Another, nearly identical pair of
satyrs on stamnoi in Florence (Museo Archeologico 4227; Beazley, ARV,
1028, 11) and Lugano (private collection) are linked by Isler-Kerényi to
a satyr-play featuring Herakles (C. Isler-Kerényi, Stamnoi [Lugano, 1976], 83-88). Their counterpart on a chous in Athens enlivens a scene perhaps based on the Amymone, another Aischylean satyr-play (Lexicon Iconographcium Mythologiae Classicae 1, pl. 598, 13).
- See Bates, American Journal of Archaeology 20 (1916): 395, note 1; and Tillyard, Hope Vases, 80. The Lateran Marsyas in Museo Gregoriano Profano 9974; see G. Daltrop, Il Gruppo mironiano di Athena e Marsia nei Musei Vaticani (Vatican City, 1980).
- Pliny, Natural History, 34.57; Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.24.1.
- Staatliche Museen F 2418. G.M.A. Richter is but one of many who have drawn the parallel (The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks [New Haven, 1929], 207, fig. 587).
- R. Carpenter, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 18 (1941), 5-8.
- W. N. Bates, American Journal of Archaeology 20 (1916): 395, note 1.
Referenced Works of Art
- Red-Figure Volute Krater
Attributed to the Methyse Painter
Greek, Athenian, about 560-550 B.C.
Slip-glazed earthenware
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Donald C. Dayton, 83.80
