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Selected Vase-Fragments from the Acropolis of Athens.—II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
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The vase-fragments represented on Plates II.–IV. are with one exception here published for the first time and all belong to red-figured works. For the permission to publish them I am deeply indebted to M. Kavvadias, and I wish also to acknowledge help kindly given me by Dr. Wolters and Mr. Cecil Smith. Three of the works are in the early severe style, one shows the developed severe work and two belong to the advanced fine period. They are distributed on the plates merely with regard to convenience of publication. Nothing is more noticeable to any one glancing over the mass of vase-fragments from the Acropolis than the fact that while the preponderance of black-figured over red-figured works is very great (Dr. Graef puts the proportion at more than three to one), the vast majority of the former are poor in design and carelessly executed but the latter are nearly all careful and good. This seems to show—for the proportion can hardly be due to accident—that the older style continued in favour, probably because it was cheap, long after the introduction of a new method, and that the new school only produced works at the highest level of their ability, and by so doing ultimately commanded the market both at home and abroad. It is not till the second period of red-figured work that careless and hasty productions are turned out. Inferior artists seem to have contented themselves with imitations of successful masters: thus for example one seems to note imitations of Duris in museums.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1894
References
1 Dr. Wolters informs me that one fragment of this kylix was found, in August 1886, east of the Parthenon, somewhat deep down, under a layer of poros-fragments, which in all probability contained débris from the Persian devastation of the Acropolis. The rest of the vase fragments here figured were not noted when found, but fragments of the vase figured on Pl. IV.a were turned up west of the Erechtheion, at the spot where the fourteen archaic statues were discovered all together.
2 I take the opportunity of hailing the appearance of this great work with delight. Two or three more comprehensive works of the kind accompanied with reliable plates would probably solve nine-tenths of the questions which are debated in connection with Greek vase-painting.
3 Two small fragments have recently been fitted to this vase, belonging to B, and thus the left arm of Thetis has been added to the in. terior.
4 Since writing this, I have heard from Dr. Wolters that two additional fragments of B, not here figured, have been added. He writes ‘Wir haben zwei Fragmente hinzugefügt, welche das einzeln gezeichnete Fragment, auf welchem das Bein eines orientalisch bekleideten Mannes und die Beine einiger anderen Krieger erscheinen, mit dem Hauptteil der Vase verbinden, und besonders diesen erstgenannten Mann etwas vervollständigen.’ A fuller description will show whether I am right in placing two standing warriors on B to the left of this ‘fallen Trojan.’ Dr. Wolters does not mention any additional inscriptions.
5 Perhaps I may say that the least satisfactory chapter in Hartwig's book seems to me to be the one on Chachrylion. It is difficult to attribute to one hand the Cambridge signed kylix Pl. II. 3 and the Bourguignon kylix Pl. V.
6 Three branches are similarly held by the priestess on the b.f. amphora with sacrifice to Athena (Berlin 1686).
7 As I have not seen the other fragments of this vase, I fear that what I have conjectured above may prove valueless.
8 Surely these are not portraits, as Reisch, (Führer II. 247)Google Scholar says. Apart from the fact of the beards, are these figures to be regarded as anything but genre-types? Is the young rider really meant for Leagros on the interior of Euphronios' Geryon kylix?
9 See Paus. ap. Eust., on Il. xxiv. 29Google Scholar
on the 
10 These other fragments are mostly from the edge, so that very scanty portions of the figures are preserved. The lower half of the body is preserved, Dr. Wolters tells me, of one man in chiton and tall laced boots in rapid motion to right. Can this be Dionysos as in the hydria from Kertsch, and is the subject after all the contest of Athena and Poseidon?