- Museum number
- 1888,1115.3
- Description
-
Two fragments of a red-figure plastic rhyton by the Sotades Painter
GR 1888,11-15.4: fragment from lower part of vessel, including a left arm; partly covered with black gloss.
GR 1888,11-15.3: fragment of the lower part of the cup, with only the lower half of the upper frieze preserved.
Upper frieze: The making of Pandora; In the centre is seen the lower part of the figure of Pandora in a long chiton, with feet close together, facing to front. On the right the feet of Athene in long chiton and peplos, holding her spear, hastening to left. Behind her, the end of an himation of a third figure. On the left of Pandora is Hephaestos, standing partly to the front, wearing a short bordered himation. Next him on left a woman (Aphrodite ?) in a long bordered chiton and an himation falling in pteryges at her right side, looking towards Pandora.
Lower frieze: The Calydonian boar-hunt. A bearded hunter, Meleager, with a skin fastened round his shoulders and covering his extended left arm, the paws knotted on his breast, strides to left after a boar which gallops away up hill to right. Meleager has a small hunter's club in his left, and seems to be hurling a stone with his right hand, which is broken away. He wears a purple fillet. Brown inner markings and details of skin. Eye in archaic type. The two friezes are separated by a band of elaborate maeander alternating with rosettes of four petals, red on black.
- Production date
- 470 BC-450 BC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 12 centimetres (max (1888,11-15.3))
-
Width: 6.80 millimetres (1888,11-15.4)
-
Width: 9.80 centimetres (max (1888,11-15.3))
- Curator's comments
- See Hogarth et al. 1888, 218 and 220 for details of the find-spot (discovered with GR 1888,11-15.1 and 5) and further discussion. Also Maier and Karageorghis 1984, 241-2 and fig. 223; Chapter V more generally for an overview of the Sanctuary in the Hellenistic period; Maier 2007 provides a more recent account. Leibundgut Wieland and Frey-Asche 2011 provide an overview of all the known votive offerings from the shrine from previous excavations.
On the vessel itself, see Hermary 2004 and Lubsen-Admiraal and Hoffmann 1995. Hoffmann 1997 provides a survey of all of the work attributed to Sotades. On the significance of plastic vases in Attic Greek pottery, see Lissarrague 1995 (with earlier references), while True 2006 discusses their production.
Bibliography:
Hermary, A. 2004, 'Rhytons de l'atelier de Sotadès dans l'Empire Achéménide, de Palaepaphos à Suse', Mediterranean Archaeology 17, 43-50.
Hoffmann H. 1997, Sotades. Symbols of immortality on Greek vases (Oxford).
Lissarrague F. 1995, 'Identity and otherness: The case of Attic head vases and plastic vases', Source: Notes in the History of Art 15/1 (Special Issue: Representaitons of the 'Other' in Athenian art, c. 510-400 BC), 4-9.
Lubsen-Admiraal, S.M. and Hoffmann, H. 1995, 'The Sotades Painter's rhyton from Paphos: Reading Athenian vase imagery in a Cypriot context', Hephaistos 13, 73-91.
Maier F.-G. (2007), ‘From regional centre to sanctuary town: Palaipaphos in the late Classical early Hellenistic period’, in P. Flourentzos (ed.), From Evagoras I to the Ptolemies. The transition from the Classical to the Hellenistic period in Cyprus (Nicosia: Department of Antiquities), 17-33.
Maier F.-G. and Karageorghis V (1984), Paphos. History and archaeology (Nicosia: A.G. Leventis Foundation).
True M. 2006, 'Athenian potters and the production of plastic vases', in B. Cohen (ed.), Colors of Clay (Malibu), 240-9.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Top of vessel cut away in antiquity.
- Acquisition date
- 1888
- Department
- Greek and Roman
- Registration number
- 1888,1115.3
