- Museum number
- 1873,0111.7
- Description
-
Pottery: red-figured pyxis.
Women at toilet. The locality is indicated as usual in this class of vases by a pair of folding doors, decorated with three horizontal rows of studs, with handle in lower and keyhole in upper partition; above them is an entablature with mutules; the right-hand door is open inwards, and in the doorway stands Iphigeneia in long sleeved chiton, part seen en face, looking to right and putting round her head a long taenia; above her, her name, ΙΦΙΓΕΝΕΙΑ, Ιφιγένεια. The hinges of the open door are indicated in black silhouette. To her comes on right Danae, in long sleeved chiton and hair looped up with a fillet, who holds on her left arm a large box with lid partly raised, from which she takes with her right a necklace of beads; over her, ΔΑΝΑΕ, Δανάη. The remainder of the scene is occupied by two groups, separated by a Doric column; behind Danae on the right, Helena, in long sleeved chiton, mantle, and spotted saccos, is seated on a diphros to right, holding up a cord which she seems to have taken from a calathos in front, and wound round her left forearm; over her, ΕΛΕΝΕ, 'Ελένη. Confronting her, Clytaemnestra stands in similar dress, holding out in her right a large alabastron; her hair hangs loose down her back; over her, her name, ΚΛΥΤΑΙΜΕ…ΡΑ, Κλυταιμ(ν)ή[στ]ρα; the missing letters and part of her head are chipped away. On the other side of the column two women are confronted, both dressed as the last; the one on the left has her hair looped up with a fillet, and holds out a situla-shaped basket, decorated with two bands of ivy and filled with fruit, towards the other, who wears a saccos and lifts the edge of her chiton from her right shoulder. Over these two figures is written, ΚΑΣΣΑΝΔPΑ, Κασσάνδρα, but it is uncertain for which of the two the name is intended.
Around the knob of the lid is a circle of tongue pattern (repeated under the edge of the lid and below the design on the body); outside this, a band of palmettes laid horizontally. The design forms a frieze running round the body. It is drawn in fine minute style (cf. the knucklebone vase BM Vase Ε804). A yellowish-white thick colour is used for the studs and handles of the door, fruit, and inscriptions. Purple taenia and fillet of Danae. Brown inner details. Eye in profile. The figure of Iphigeneia is drawn entirely (excepting the hair) in black outline against the red of the door.
- Production date
- 500BC-470BC
- Dimensions
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Diameter: 12.70 centimetres
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Diameter: 120 millimetres
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Height: 17.78 centimetres
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Height: 175 millimetres
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Weight: 520 grammes
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Arch. Zeit. 1874, p. 112; Rhein. Mus. 1881, p. 470; Heydemann in Comment. Mommseni, p. 170; Kretschmer, Gr. Vaseninschr. pp. 166, 178. Klein, Meistersig2 p. 206, refers this and the two pyxides, BM Vases Ε772, Ε774, to the painter Megacles.
Mangieri, A.F. (2010). Legendary Women and Greek Womanhood: The Heroines Pyxis in the British Museum. AJA 114 (3): 429-445
- Location
- On display (G20a/dc13)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2006 8 Jun-4 Sep, Los Angeles, The Getty Villa, The Colors of Clay
2008 1 May-12 Jul, Shanghai, The Ancient Olympic Games
2008 2 Aug-31 Sep, Hong Kong, The Ancient Olympic Games
2009 2 Apr-13 Oct, Alicante, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2010 30 Apr-30 Aug, Seoul, National Museum of Korea, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
Exhibited:
2009 2 Apr-13 Oct, Alicante, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2010 30 Apr-30 Aug, Seoul, National Museum of Korea, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2010-2011 15 Oct-07 Feb, Taipei, The National Palace Museum, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2010-2011, 11 Mar-12 Jun, Kobe City Museum, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2011, 4 July-25 Sept, Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2011-2012, 25 Oct-12 Feb, Mexico City, National Anthropological Museum, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2012-2013 6 Oct-6 Jan, Portland Art Museum, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2013, 6 May–6 Oct, Dallas Museum of Art, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2014, 21 Feb-9 Jun, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greek Art and Thought
2014, 2 Aug–9 Nov, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia, The Body Beautiful in Greek Art and Thought
- Acquisition date
- 1873
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1873,0111.7
