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Attic Black-Figured Pelikai

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Dietrich von Bothmer
Dietrich von Bothmer
Affiliation:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Extract

In the summer of 1949 the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired an Attic black-figured pelike which is published here for the first time (figs. 1–3, pl. XX). It was bought from a New York dealer, and nothing is known of its provenance. The vase is 33·3 cm. high and unbroken; its surface, however, was chipped and flaked in places (cf. figs. 1 and 2), blemishes that have since been removed by the restorer at the museum. The potting of the pelike is normal—torus mouth, spreading foot, segmental handles—and the ornamentation—palmettes lying on their sides above the panels—occurs on other pelikai. One feature, however, is unusual: the lip is reserved and two broadish black stripes run around the inside of the neck (fig. 3). A graffito appears on the underside of the foot:

The obverse of the pelike depicts a dramatic moment in the capture of Silenos. The two hunters sent out by Midas crouch in ambush near the fountain in the garden of the king. They wear white petasoi, short chitons, and chlamydes wrapped around their left arms in the manner of big-game hunters and shield-less warriors. Each of them carries two spears; in addition, the one on the rock has a sword in a scabbard suspended from a double baldrick. There was a tradition that Midas had mixed wine into the water of the fountain to lure and capture Silenos: the New York pelike shows how the ruse is about to succeed. Here Silenos approaches, sniffing the familiar odour of the wine and dancing with joy. As yet he hasn't drunk and one fears he will be cheated out of his anticipated pleasure, for the hunters will presently close in, overpower him, and bring him before the king. The vase-painters usually show the moment immediately after the capture, the bringing-in of the prisoner, and his presentation before the king. The ambush proper is represented on only three other vases.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 71 , November 1951 , pp. 40 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1951

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References

1 Acc. no. 49.11.1. Purchased with income from the Rogers Fund. I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to friends and colleagues who have helped in various ways: to Professor Sir John D. Beazley for putting his notes on b.f. pelikai at my disposal; to Miss M. J. Milne for advice on questions of mythology, and to Dr. G. H. Chase, Professor P. Devambez, Miss D. K. Hill, Mrs. S. P. Karouzou, Dr. N. M. Kontoleon, Miss L. Talcott, Professor H. Thompson, and Professor E. Vanderpool for letting me study or publish vases under their care. A paper on the subject of this article was read at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Baltimore on December 30, 1948.

2 The principal restoration is in the right leg of the older boxer on the reverse. In all other instances the modern black follows the silhouette of the original design which was discernible through the discoloration of the clay.

3 The subject has been treated by Brommer, in AA 1941, 36 ffGoogle Scholar, and, more recently, by Beazley, in Hesperia Supplement VIII (1949) 4–5.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Xenophon, , Anabasis I, ii, 13Google Scholar; Pausanias I, 4, 5.

5 AA 1937, 406 f.; Bd'A XXXI (1937) 149 ff.

6 AA 1941, 41–42, figs. 3–5.

7 AA 1941, 49, fig. 10.

8 AA 1941, 37–38, fig. 1.

9 Metamorphoses XI, 85 ff.

10 Aristotle, Eudemos, quoted by Plutarch, , Consolatio ad Apollonium 27Google Scholar (Moralia 115 B ff.).

11 Aristotle, loc. cit. Cf. Cicero, , Tusculanae disputationes I, 48Google Scholar (114).

12 Details of rock and fountain are indicated with added white, now partly faded, and with incised lines.

13 P. 46, appendix VII.

14 Gerhard, , ECV pl. 15, 16, 1–2.Google Scholar

16 ABS pl. 15.

17 MuZ 301.

18 AJA XLVII (1943) 395.

19 As shown by the oil and wine vending scenes on the pelikai nos. 19, 20, 21, 41, 53. Cf. Haspels, , ABL pp. 129–130.Google Scholar

20 Richter and Milne, Shapes and Mames of Athenian Vases, figs. 9–10. The foot of the amphora fig. 9 is alien and has since been replaced.

21 Lidded pelikai occur occasionally in the fifth century and have been put together by Beazley, in his Etruscan Vase-Painting, 178.Google Scholar To his list may be added a pair of black pelikai from the Agora, P 14152 and 14153. The lids are now missing.

22 For the Eretrian b.f. neck-pelike, Vienna 136, cf. Amyx, , AJA XLV 65Google Scholar, fig. 3.

23 Beazley, , ARV p. 17Google Scholar, no. 10.

24 Beazley, , Paralipomena p. 412.Google Scholar

25 Beazley, , ARV p. 136Google Scholar, no. 84.

26 Beazley, , ARV p. 173Google Scholar, no. 14.

27 Beazley, , ARV p. 17, no. 9Google Scholar; Paralipomena p. 390.