- Museum number
- 1772,0320.26.+
- Description
-
Pottery: red-figured calyx-krater:
(a) A kitharist victorious (in the Panathenaea ?). In the centre is a basis of two steps (βήμα); on the lower step mounts from left a bearded man, wreathed with laurel, wearing a long chiton, over which is a shorter Doric chiton schistos (diplois); he holds with left arm a large kithara of eight strings, which he touches with his fingers; a plectrum in his right, the lower end of which is decorated with cross-lines. Towards him on right flies a Nike, holding out both hands, as if with a wreath or tainia (not indicated); she wears a Doric chiton with apoptygma, and hair looped up in a knot. On the right a bearded man, the agonothetes (superintendent), sits in a chair looking on, wreathed with olive and closely wrapped in a mantle. Balancing this figure on the left is a female figure, seated on raised ground, in long chiton and saccos, with a long spear resting against her right arm and shoulder. Over her a smaller figure of Nike swoops down towards the kitharist, holding up in her left a fluted phiale, placed in another phiale decorated with circles; she wears a Doric chiton and a sphendone.
(b) A woman in a long Ionic chiton, mantle, and saccos, between two draped ephebi; she holds out her right towards the one on the right, who rests his right hand on a staff.
Finest style. Below each side, pairs of maeanders separated by dotted cross squares; above, a band of palmettes, oblique back-to-back.
- Production date
- 450BC-440BC (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 46.99 centimetres
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Height: 45.72 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
See also the Wedgwood vase registration number 1786,0527.1.
-
BM Cat. Vases
D'Hancarville, iii, pl. 31; Inghirami, Vasi Fitt. iii, pl. 290; Moses, Ant. Vases, pi. 20; Michaelis, Parthenon, p. 31, gives cut of a, cf. ibid. p. 30, note 108; Daremberg and Saglio, s.v. citharista, p. 1216, fig. 1570, give the central part of a.
C.I.A. ii, 965 shows that in contests such as that for άνδρες κιθαρισταί the prize at the Panathenaea was not an amphora of oil, but crowns or money. Reisch, De Mus. Gr. Cert. p. 20, note 1.
For the female figure in a, cf. the Athene in East frieze of Parthenon.
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Jenkins & Sloan 1996
D'Hancarville's interpretation of the subject as the Apotheosis of Homer must now be regarded as fanciful.
LITERATURE: D'Hancarville, AEGR, III, pl. 31, p. 210, note; d'Hancarville, MS Catalogue, 11, pp. 654-7; Beazley, ARV2 1041, 2.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Surface worn.
- Acquisition date
- 1772
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1772,0320.26.+
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 1772,0320.26.*
