- Museum number
- 1836,0224.9
- Description
-
Pottery: red-figured neck-amphora.
(a) Apollo, with hair looped up with wreath, slight hair on cheek, a mantle decorated with minute trefoils over his shoulders and left arm, sword hanging at his side from broad black cross-belt, strides forward to right with outstretched bow, as though he had just shot an arrow; and with his right draws another arrow from the quiver over his shoulder.
(b) Tityos and Leto. Tityos, a bearded man with hair looped up with fillet, falls on his left knee dying to right, looking back, with extended right hand and lips parted as if in suppliance to Apollo: he is smitten with an arrow in the right thigh, and another (coloured purple) just in the heart, and blood gushes from the wounds: but still with his left arm he clasps the waist of Leto, who moves to the right in the background: she looks round to the left, raising with her left hand the veil from the back of her head, and with her right hand the edge of her skirt: she wears a long full-sleeved chiton undertied and fastened with studs, a mantle like that of Apollo, a broad fillet with billet pattern, and bracelets (the upper part of her body and face are damaged).
On the bottom of the foot an incised character.
The foot of Tityos extends over the left hand border. Purple is used for the wreath, fillet, the blood, and the arrow in the breast of Tityos. Brown is used for inner markings, whiskers, the upper folds of chiton, and a brown wash for the veil of Leto. The eye is in archaic form, with pupil against the inner angle slightly opened: the dying eye of Tityos has the pupil upturned. The design curves up over the shoulder and is inclosed in a panel, thus: below the design, a continuous band of maeanders: above, continuous tongue pattern: and on each side, net pattern. On each side of the neck, a rich ornament of six palmettes: and a single palmette below each handle.
- Production date
- 490BC-480BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 50.80 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- BM Cat. Vases
Mon. dell’ Inst, i, pl. 23; Ann. dell’ Inst. 1830, p. 225; Inghirami, Vasi. Fitt. i, pl. 45; Él. Cér. ii, pl. 55, p. 162; Muller-Wieseler, Denkm. d. a. Kunst, ii, pl. 13, no 146; Overbeck, Kunstmyth, (Apollo), p. 63, no. 19, Atlas, pl. xxiii, 3.
The drawing though spirited if somewhat heavy, and a characteristic feature is the disproportionate size of the thighs and the peculiar rendering of the muscles of the abdomen: also the decorative form of the pubes: the nails and joints of the toes are carefully rendered in b. Tityos' ear is of the same form as that of Dionysos in BM Vase Ε279. For the attitude of Tityos, cf. Pliny's description (xxxvi, 74) of a volneratum deficientem of Cresilas. For that of Leto, cf. BM VasesΕ176 and E807.
For the incised character, see Old Catalogue pl. Β806.
- Location
- On display (G20a/dc7)
- Acquisition date
- 1836
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1836,0224.9
