- Museum number
- 1867,0508.1221
- Description
-
Pottery: red-figured stemless cup.
Interior: Within a circle of sets of four maeanders separated by chequer squares, Revel of Dionysos and Ariadne. Dionysos (youthful, long wavy hair, taenia in bow over ears, radiated stephane, mantle hanging from left shoulder and twisted around right leg) staggers to right, his head (in three-quarter face) thrown back as if he were singing; his left arm, holding a chelys, hangs at his side; his left is passed round the neck of Ariadne, who supports him with her right around his waist. She looks back at him, holding up a tympanon on her left, decorated in the centre with a star. She wears a long chiton, a bordered himation which is kept up by the left arm, and a jacket open down the front and embroidered with rosettes and a border of spirals; her hair is looped up with a purple fillet, and she wears a radiated stephane, earrings, bracelets, and a necklace. On the left Eros flies behind them, his head thrown back as if he were singing, and striking with his right on an uplifted tympanon. He is represented as a young boy, with long wavy hair confined with a fillet. On the right a sprig of laurel springs from the ground. The feet of the figure rest on no ground-line. Around the scene runs along the lip of the vase a wreath of vine-leaves alternating with bunches of grapes.
The exterior scenes fall into two horizontal bands, suggested by the modelling of the vase. On the broad lip is a wreath composed of alternate myrtle-flowers and groups of three myrtle-leaves. On the body of the vase:
Exterior: (a) Dionysos and thiasos. Dionysos (youthful, nude, wearing a fillet around his short hair) is seated to right on a mantle spread on rising ground, indicated by purple lines; he leans on his right elbow, and holds in left a thyrsos; he turns to look at a nymph on left, who brings him a bowl. On his right another nymph brings a cantharos; both are dressed in a chiton girt at the waist, and have hair tied in a knot at back; they wear necklace, earrings and bracelets, and a stephane (?). On the right a satyr dances forward, with head thrown back and snapping the fingers of his right hand; he has a head-dress like that of Dionysos.
(b) The same. Here the right hand nymph has no cantharos; her right rests on her hip, and she stands to right facing the dancing satyr, who is here ithyphallic. Beneath and beside each handle is a triple palmette ornament with acanthus leaves.
Drawing florid. In the interior shading in a brownish tone is used for the jacket and the tympana; purple for some of the headbands and the lines of ground; gilding for jewellery, headdresses, dots on the tympana, berries on thyrsi, grapes, and stalks of vine, berries of laurel and myrtle and centres of palmettes. The face of Dionysos in the interior is drawn with wrinkled forehead, the wrinkles coloured brown. Inner markings in very thin black. The eye is of developed profile type. Beneath and beside each handle a triple palmette ornament with acanthus leaves.
- Production date
- 390BC (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 25.40 centimetres
-
Height: 7.62 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- BM Cat. Vases
The lyre, the laurel sprig, and the indication of rays on the head would suggest Apollo (cf. Ann. dell’ Inst. 1865, pl. H): moreover he has long hair, whereas the undoubted Dionysos on exterior has short hair and is a different type. Apollo is shown in a Dionysiac scene in Stephani, Compte-Rendu, 1861, pl. 4. The Phrygian jacket and the tympanon of the woman may mark her as Kybele.
- Location
- On display (G73/dc68)
- Condition
- Surface slightly chipped in parts, and gilt rubbed, but otherwise intact.
- Acquisition date
- 1867
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1867,0508.1221
