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A Black Figure Fragment in the Dorset Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

In the Dorset County Museum at Dorchester there are thirteen fragments of Attic Black Figure pottery which form part of a collection of antiques acquired by the Museum in 1885 from the late Mr. Charles Warne, F.S.A. Most of Mr. Warne's collection consists of objects of local interest, and nothing is known of the history of the Greek fragments beyond the fact that on the back of one of them is written the name Campanari. This fragment no doubt came from Campanaria's excavations in Tuscany, but there is no evidence to show whether all the pieces have the same provenance, nor even whether they were all acquired by Mr. Warne from the same source.

The most interesting of the sherds is a fragment of an eye-kylix which once bore the signature of the maker. The clay is fine and clear, the glaze good. The outside decoration needs no description, since every detail can be seen in the photograph here published (Fig. 1). The inside is black with a line reserved in ground colour just below the rim. As it stands to-day the inscription … ϟ ΕΓΟΙ … is somewhat baffling. The remaining ϟ of the signature tells us little, since there are not more than half a dozen known Black Figure potters whose names do not end in this letter. The identification of the master, therefore, depends on the discovery of a signed vase with kindred decoration.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1922

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References

1 My thanks are due to the Curator, Capt. J. E. Acland, for very kindly giving me permission to publish this fragment.

2 They are as follows: (i) fragment of the eye-kylix dealt with in this article; (ii) and (iii) two kylix fragments which fit together; bearded man in chiton and himation running to right and looking back, carrying an aryballos on a string; (iv) fragment of kylix; lower part of man in himation walk-ing to left wearing winged shoes; (v) fragment of kylix; ivy- and vine-branches and grapes, rays; (vi) fragment of kylix: lion's head, neck, and part of tail, floral decoration; (vii) fragment of kylix: nude man riding mule, head and shoulders of man of larger size; (viii) fragment of kylix: between eyes in black silhouette seated figure of Dionysos with rhyton, vine-branches and grapes in field; (ix) fragment of kylix: winged female figure in chiton and himation to right; (x) fragment of kylix: deep black rim, below it band of palmettes, leaves black and purple; (xi) fragment probably of kyathos: sphinx to right, looking back, branches. The two following are B.F. on pale ground: (xii) fragment of kyathos with modelled female head at base of handle; on each side of handle, leopards, branches; (xiii) part of rim of same or similar vase, female figure in chiton, branches, part of black object (? eye). Of these Nos. (i) to (v) are good early work.

3 No. (iv) of previous note.

4 This vase, which Klein and Nicole could not locate, is now in the Musée des Antiquités at Rouen, and has been published by the Director, Vesly, M. Léon de, in Notes Archéologiques, Rouen, 1908.Google Scholar

5 Walton, , A.J.A. xi. (1907), p. 159.Google Scholar

6 An exception is the kylix of Nikosthenes, Louvre, F 121, which on one side has the single figure of Heracles with an enormous club.

7 Three amphorae and four olpae, cp. Nicole, , Corpus des Céramistes grecs, Rev. Arch., 1916Google Scholar, corrected by Hoppin, in A.J.A. xxi. (1917).Google Scholar

8 Karo, , J.H.S. xix. (1899), p. 138.Google Scholar

9 E. g. on the pyxis in Florence signed by Nikosthenes.

10 The fourth figure from the right on the small frieze above the panel on each side of the vase, J.H.S., 1899, Pl. V.

11 For this Klein gives copying apparently from an old drawing of the vase.

12 Hauser, , Jahreshefte des oest. arch. Inst. x. (1907), p. 3Google Scholar; Loeschke in Pauly-Wissowa, i. 1748.

13 E. g. the trumpeter on the kylix in the Vatican, Alinari photo, No. 35782.

14 It is, therefore, a question whether Amasis is to be regarded as one of the first to introduce the Ionic eye-kylix into the Attic potteries (Buschor, , Greek Vase Painting, trans., p. 102Google Scholar), or whether in his later years he followed a fashion already made popular by others.

15 Both sides of the vase are figured in Vases Antiques du Louvre, Plate LXIX.

16 Catalogue des Vases Antiques du Louvre, p. 746.