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A Group of Plastic Vases1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Martin Robertson
Martin Robertson
Affiliation:
British Museum
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Extract

Pl. V, 1 and 2 shows a plastic vase in the British Museum, in the form of an antelope's head, cut off flat at the base of the neck and with the orifice in the right ear. The clay is light reddish-brown with a very smooth surface, the glaze brownish-black. The horns, ears, eyelids, pupils, muzzle and outlines of jaws are black, the face is covered with fine black dots, the neck and throat and the burr of the horns with short black strokes; there are white dots on the muzzle, red in the interior of ears and nostrils, and an incised line round the pupils. Under the base is a black rosette with a white dot on each petal (Pl. V, 2). Horns and ears are broken off, but are preserved complete on a replica in Berlin (Fig. 1, a and Pl. V, 3). Mlle. Maximova pointed out the connexion of the two vases, though she wrongly stated that the London vase had no orifice. She mentioned two others with the orifice in the ear—a bull's head in Berlin and a ram's head in Florence, both also cut off flat at the neck. The bull's head has no other resemblance to the antelopes', but the ram's appears from the description to be of similar style. The main peculiarity of the painting of the antelopes' heads—the covering of some areas with fine dots and others with short dashes—recurs on a number of other vases.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , 1938 , pp. 41 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1938

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References

2 1340. Maximova, , Les Vases Plastiques pl. XXIII, no. 94, and pp. 124 f.Google Scholar, 175. The peculiar convention of the joined horns, making a loop to hang the vase up by, is evidently a rendering of a lyrate form in the original; cf. the bronze horns, Olympia IV, pl. LVII, 977Google Scholar. This and the long boot face are typical of certain gazelles and antelopes found in Arabia and Africa; cf. the ὄρος mentioned by Herodotus, IV, 192, as inhabiting Eastern Libya, whose horns were used to make frames for lyres. The ὄρυξ, also apparently an antelope, was believed by Aristotle (H.A. 499 b 20, PA 663 a 23) to have only one horn in the centre of its forehead. Perhaps our creatures also have a place in the ancestry of the unicorn.

3 Op. cit. p. 125, n. 1.

4 1302, op. cit. pl. XXIII, no. 93, and pp. 123, 175.

5 Op. cit. p. 119 f.

6 Op. cit., p. 110, n. 1.

7 Necrocorinthia, p. 177.

8 Maximova, p. 118.

9 1303, op. cit. pl. XXIII, no. 91, and p. 119. L 6·5 cms.

10 Locc. citt. 6a and 7 are placed in the ‘Rhodian group’; the rest in the ‘Gorgon group.’

11 Griechischer Vasen in Würzburg, pp. 20–21, nos. 148, 150, where he associates these three vases, and with them a bull's head, 149, which seems to me of other style.

12 Necrocorinthia, pp. 175, n. 1, 177–9.

13 Vasi Antichi Dipinti del Vaticano, fasc. 1, pp. 33, 39 ff., nos. 109–23.

14 Op. cit. p. 96, n. 1.

15 See Necrocorinthia, p. 179, bottom.

16 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Catalogue of Greek and Etruscan Vases, I, 175–9Google Scholar.

17 Catalogue of Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, II, Black-figured Vases, pp. 47, 283 ff.; p. 295, B 666.

18 I have only examined 1, 6, 10, 14 and 19, but descriptions of the rest tally. Corinthian clay is generally distinctive, Attic often so, but most others are unreliable. See further below, p. 50, n. 57.

19 Necrocorinthia, p. 175.

20 Hare, Lausanne, 4017, Maximova, pl. XXII, 87, which may belong to our series (see above); monkey, A 1107, loc. cit. pl. XXII, 89. The Cycladic griffon-oenochae has dots on the face, as have a bull's head and horse's head from Gela, of peculiar style—probably local pastiches (MA xvii, pp. 717–18, figs. 548–9).

I know only three other plastic vases which shew the areas of short dashes typical of our series: (1) a fragmentary vase from Ialysos (Clara Rhodos, III, p. 35, fig. 19Google Scholar) in the form of a boar, with the orifice in its forehead; from the publication it appears to be covered with dashes, but the drawing is so grotesque that one can tell nothing—it might, I suppose, belong to our series; (2) the beautiful Etruscan lion in the British Museum, E 803, early fourth-century B.C.?—very close in style to the Arezzo chimaera; (3) a fine stag of the same fabric in the Louvre, 176.

21 Palmette, Protocorinthian duck in Berlin, 3676, Neugebauer, Führer, pl. 11; Maximova, pl. XLIV, 16; Johansen, pl. XLI, 1; Payne, Protokorinthische Vasenmalerei, pl. 25, 5; rosettes, Cretan double owl-vase in Oxford (see below); Corinthian fragments of eagle's head from Cortona; Acheloos head, Maximova, pl. XLIII, 162, and others of the same type; cf. the patterns and animals on the fat men, e.g. Würzburg, Langlotz, 145, pl. 19, and Clara Rhodos, vi–vii, pp. 87–91Google Scholar, figs. 97–100 and pl. IV.

22 The swallow, Maximova, pl. XVIII, 74, has only a small hole in the top of the head. This charming vase, and such ducks as Maximova, pl. XIX, 75, among Ionian vases, with the Vatican and London ducks in our series, shew the two styles at their nearest approach, but they are very different; the featherless back of the swallow would be unthinkable in our group.

23 Cf., however, the Corinthian Acheloos heads, which have it in or under the horn.

24 From Orchomenos, BCH xix, 171, fig. 5Google Scholar.

25 Berlin, 1340, Gerhard Collection (see above); Louvre from the Campana Collection, CVA fasc. 8 (France 12), III, loc. cit. pl. 7, 28–30, Maximova, pl. XXXVIII, 42.

26 Annuario, x–xii, pp. 321, fig. 418, and 342, fig. 444Google Scholar; Liverpool Annals, xii, pl. IV.

27 Annuario, x–xii, p. 547, fig. 611Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., pp. 548–9, fig. 612 a–b; CVA fasc. 2, IIa, pl. III, 1–4.

29 Necrocorinthia, p. 175 and n. 2.

30 Cf. the whorled ears on certain Chalcidian eye-cups—the side of the Phineus cup shown FR I p. 219, and others, Pfuhl, fig. 165, Rumpf, pl. CLXXVIII ff.

31 Annuario, x–xii, p. 223Google Scholar, fig. 251; Liverpool Annals, xii, pl. IV.

32 See Maximova, Pl. XXIX, no. 144, and p. 90, Payne, , Necrocorinthia, p. 176Google Scholar, Beazley, in BSA xxix, 202Google Scholar. To the Corinthian examples add B.M. 61·4–25·38, from Camirus.

33 Maximova, pl. XLIV, 166; Johansen, pl. XLI, 5: Payne, , Necrocorinthia, pp. 80, fig. 23, 171Google Scholar, fig. 71.

34 Cf. the lion's head from Italy in the Louvre 38, Maximova, pl. XLIII, 163, there classed as Italo-Corinthian. L. 8·5 cm. The rosettes on the face (cf. p. 46, n. 21) are identical with those on our no. 10 (fig. 3) and I think it very probable that this vase also belongs to our series; the clay is suitable.

35 3724, Neugebauer, Führer, pl. 17.

36 86. 4–1. 1272, JHS xliv, pl. VII, 9Google Scholar.

37 See below.

38 See especially Smith, H. R. W., The Origin of Chalcidian Ware, pp. 101 ff., 112 ff.Google Scholar, 133, n. 119, and passim. Prof. Smith has not absolutely proved Etruria the home of Chalcidian vases, but he has shifted the burden of proof on to those who believe otherwise, and established a strong probability that his hypothesis is actually correct.

39 P. 21, no. 148.

40 Chalkidische Vasen, pp. 145 ff.

41 Smith, loc. cit. pp. 112, 125 ff.

42 Smith, 112.

43 Payne, , Necrocorinihia, pp. 176–80Google Scholar.

44 Cf. Beazley, , BSA xxix, 200–4Google Scholar. This explains the lack on our vases of the Attic influence so prominent in Chalcidian. The rendering of the boar's tusk from the upper jaw (pl. V, 4) is best paralleled on two Attic pieces of the mid-sixth century—the Calydonian boars on the François vase and on a beautiful fragment from the Acropolis of Athens attributed by Rumpf to Sakonides (Graef, 782, pl. 50; Rumpf, , Sakonides, 71 and p. 12Google Scholar). In nature the boar has a small upward-curling tusk from the upper jaw; this is almost always omitted in early Greek art. It might be suggested that our vases are themselves Attic, but the clay would hardly pass, and the total lack of finds from Athens, Attica, Boeotia, etc., put it nearly out of the question.

45 Perhaps also the lion's head in the Louvre (above, p. 47, n. 34).

46 See above, p. 47.

47 Délos, XVII, pl. LI, 7b; Louvre, E 696; Pottier, II, pl. 52. Cf. also the very crude outline heads on Corinthian ring-vases and the Corinthian practice of drawing outline heads on aryballos handles.

48 See above, p. 46. The Corinthian examples are less advanced in form than ours.

49 Déonna, 201, fig. 94. Here the corners are cut almost square, and the ensemble is strikingly like such a vase as Maximova, pl. XXIX, 144.

50 Zervos, L'Art en Grèce, fig. 203; Neugebauer, , Katalog, 161, pl. 21Google Scholar.

51 Hoppin, Black-figure, 316Google Scholar; Beazley, , BSA xxix, 202 fGoogle Scholar.

52 AJA 1918, 270, fig. 11; Beazley, loc. cit. p. 203.

53 Cf. Pfuhl, figs. 316–18 (Euphronios), 372 (early Kleophrades Painter), 389 (Eucharides Painter).

54 Beazley, , Vases in Poland, 11–13, pl. 3, 1Google Scholar. The arcs here coincide with, if they are not determined by, the lower contour of the belly-muscles, which are stylized as a series of circles.

55 Smith, 133, n. 119, with references. Some Pontic vases may also have been made there (Smith, loc. cit. Ducati, , Pontische Vases, 22 f.Google Scholar).

56 Payne, , Necrocorinthia, 175 f., pls. 44, 5 and 48, 13–14Google Scholar.

57 See above, p. 45, n. 18. It is a brownish clay with a reddish or golden tinge, of the same general character or Chalcidian and Caeretan. The shiny surface and glossy, but sometimes perishable varnish are also paralleled in both wares.

58 One can find certain resemblances, but nothing in the least conclusive: the Chalcidian use of the step-pattern—an old-fashioned pattern far more boldly exploited than in other wares of the period—produces an effect, and implies an approach, similar to that of the dot and dash style; crenelation is a favourite pattern in Chalcidian for dress-borders, helmet-crests, etc.; Chalcidian eagles often have long heads (Rumpf, pls. VII, XIV, XXII)—a peculiarity arrived at in our vases by the demarcation of a separate area between the brow and the beak; the high-piled eyebrows of the boar give it a real likeness to the noble cattle of the Garyvones amphora (Rumpf, pl. VIII). Perhaps also worth noting are the speckling of the boar's skin on the Munich hydria (Rumpf, pl. XXIII), and of the ear on a fragmentary eye-cup in the Villa Giulia (Rumpf, pl. CXCII); also the fringe of strokes round the panther's mask drawn in outline on the Phineus cup (Rumpf, pl. XLIII, seen better FR I 216). The round heads of the ducks with their incised eyes are not unlike those of the Philadelphia stand (Smith, 89, fig. B, pls. 9, 10). The eyebrows of the owl with their spiral ends have already been compared with those on Chalcidian eye-cups (above p. 46, n. 30).