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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
I suppose it may be thought that some apology is due, firstly for introducing in this paper what appear to be merely the scattered remains of a painted vase, and secondly because part at least of the fragments on Plate I. have been published more than once, and are already well known. I shall hope to show that both apologies are needless: for one reason, these fragments are quite sufficient to suggest to us probably all the beautiful picture that the painter had in mind; and for another reason, because the portions added since the original publication entirely alter the character of the scene.
It is much to be regretted that fragments of painted vases have not always received due attention at the hands of archaeologists. Among the records of travel in Greece of the early part of this century we frequently meet with descriptions of sites which were covered with fragments of painted pottery: but it was comparatively rare to find students like Sir C. Newton, or, as in the present case, Mr. James Millingen, who took the trouble to collect and preserve the fragments themselves. Recent excavations, such as those at Tiryns and Naukratis, and more recently still on the Akropolis at Athens, have taught us how much is to be learnt from a study of these apparently insignificant potsherds. Even if they do not always, as here, combine to show us a finished picture, they often prove invaluable documents of the keramic history of the sites on which they were found.
page 2 note 1 See also Gerhard, in Arch. Zeit. 1845, pl. xxxv., 2, pp. 162 and 178Google Scholar: and Baumeister's Denkmäler, p. 1107.
page 2 note 2 Maxim. Tyr. Diss. 14, 6.
page 2 note 3 Mittheilungen des Inst. 1883, Taf. xv., Nos. 1 and 2.
page 2 note 4 These sketch marks, which are found principally on vases of the better classes with red figures, give us the artist's first study for his design; they are executed with some fine-pointed instrument which leaves a light indentation in the wet clay, and can therefore very often be clearly traced both on the red and black of the design. As a rule they exhibit the same firm freehand drawing as the finished picture: but frequently they show a detail which has been corrected and recorrected over and over again: or, what is more interesting, a point where the artist has in the finished picture changed his mind and altered a detail or a pose. It is curious also to observe, as we can do in these marks, how, in drawing a draped figure, the painter almost invariably sketches the nude figure completely before he adds the drapery: and how, when one portion of the figure is hidden by any object, such as e.g. an arm by the shield which it holds, the sketch marks show that this had been drawn before the object was laid upon it.
page 5 note 1 Mommsen, , Heortologie, p. 197Google Scholar.
page 5 note 2 Vol. ii., pp. 90—97.
page 5 note 3 The subjects represented on these pinakes—a dancing Seilenos, a Mænad dancing with torches, and a boy on horseback leading a second horse—are drawn very slightly and carelessly, and cannot be taken as having any special significance as regards the main scene.
page 5 note 4 Cf. also Arch. Jahrb. 1887, p. 219, and Ephemeris Arch. 1887, p. 133.
page 6 note 1 In Benndorf, Gr. u. Sic. Vas. xxxi, 1, is Athene standing beside a column on which is a statue of a boy: on the plinth of the column is painted the inscription Τισίας? ἀνέθηκεν. If the reading ‘Tisias,’ or more probably, ‘Teisias,’ is correct, it is possible that this scene also represents the votive offering of a vase artist: six vases signed by an Athenian of this name are known (see Klein, , Meistersignaturen,2 p. 212Google Scholar), which for palæographical reasons are referred to the sixth century: the lettering on the plinth is of course much too late for this date, but the dedicator of the sculpture on the column here may well have been the descendant of the older Teisias, bearing his name, as usual in the second generation: the lapse of two generations would about suit the relative dates of the vases in question.
page 6 note 2 The name Φιλοσκέτης presents grave philological difficulties, but it is hard to say what else it can have been.
page 7 note 1 The fragments as a whole are ·205 metre high, and give us about ¾ of one side of what has from the curve been probably a large pelikè (shape 42 of the Berlin Catalogue), of which the neck would have been about ·17 metre in diameter. The painting is in red figures, with fine black and reddish brown inner markings; and the design appears to have been further rubbed with vermilion, of which traces are specially apparent on the figure of Selene.
page 7 note 2 On the lower part of her figure are two black lines which do not appear to belong to the dress or figure of Nikè: they are in form like the antyx of a chariot, but too little remains to identify them.
page 7 note 3 These lines are not, as we should expect, indicated in colour, but lightly Incised half way through the black glaze, so that they appear in a reddish-black or purple colour.
page 7 note 4 To this list must also be added the Sabouroff pyxis, Sammlung Sabouroff, pl. lxiii.: the B.M. pyxis, E 775 (Winter, , Tirocinium Phil., p. 71Google Scholar): and, chief of all, the Gigantomachia vase, Mon. Ined. ix. 6, which gives us completely the type of Helios and Selene which I would propose for the Parthenon: and we may compare for its representation of deities of light that in Vasi d'il Conti di Siracusa, pl. vi., though Selene is not shown on that fragment.
page 8 note 1 Published in Musée Blacas, pl. 18, and in no less than twelve other works.
page 8 note 2 It is evident that this is intentional, and not merely due to the carelessness or unskilfulness of the artist: he has shown that he can draw a spirited horse in those of the chariot of Helios on the same vase, which indeed exactly resemble the horse of our fragment, and might have been drawn by the same artist: in this connection we may also note the similarity of treatment between the wings of these horses, and those of Nikè on our fragment.
page 8 note 3 Stephani, , Nimbus und Strahlenkranz, p. 28 note 6 gives one late and doubtful exceptionGoogle Scholar.
page 9 note 1 It may be urged that the figure is in this case sitting on the off-side: to this it may be answered that (i) in the case of a rider moving to the right, an artist would allow himself the license of transposing the seat: and (ii) in the group on the Pergamene frieze, and two of the vase pictures, Selene actually rides on the off side (see Hellenic Journal, iv, p. 128).