Attic red-figure Pelike
Attic red-figured pelike (storage-jar), probably used to store wine. Although similar to the more standard amphora storage jar, a pelike always had a flared base and could stand on its own unlike an amphora that often required a separate jar stand. This vase has a bulbous body with sloping shoulders; it is painted in black glaze with a broad foot and two vertical handles. The rounded rim is painted in black. The figured scenes on both sides are bordered at the top by an ivy-wreath within reserved bands. On side (a), the mythical birth of Dionysus from a thigh of Zeus: on the right, a woman, possibly the goddess Hera faces left, her hair is tied up with a wreath of ivies, and she wears a peplos with an overfold (apoptygma). Facing her on the left, a sitting Zeus, bearded and wearing himation and chiton; in his right hand he holds a long stick, possibly a scepter. The wine god Dionysus stands on the lap of Zeus and holds a wine cup and a vine. On side (b), two young draped men facing each other: man on the right bends on a walking stick; man on the left wears a cloak over a chiton that obscures his arms. Both scenes are enclosed in vertical geometrical bands with a chain of dots pattern.
Stylistic remarks: The vessel forms part of the group of ceramics attributed to the Nausicaä Painter.
Object number: 127.032.
Date: 460–440 BCE
Parallels: extremely similar examples New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 06.1021.144 (Nausicaä Painter); compare with the style of 41.162.69 (e.g. ivy-frieze, faces, position of standing old man on the right; Nausicaä Painter); compare the style of London, British Museum 1846,0128.1 (Nausicaä Painter); details of Paris, Louvre G 345 (Nausicaä Painter); for the scene of mythical birth Ferrara, National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara 2737; for the scene of two youths London, British Museum 1859,0216.111 and Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 0300680060, 1600014003.
References: Walters, H B., Forsdyke, E J., Smith, C. H., Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum, London: BMP, 1893-1925; Richter, G. M. A. and Hall, L. F., Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936, no. 72, pp. 100–1, pls. 75, 173; Richter, G. M. A., Handbook of the Greek Collection, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953, p. 84; Beazley, J. D., Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, p. 1107, no. 10; Maffre, J-J., "Deux pélikai attiques à figures rouges trouvées à Thasos", Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 1972, 96(1): p. 336 n. 17; Padgett, M., Phineus and the Boreads on a pelike by the Nausica painter, Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1991; Mannack, T., The Late Mannerists in Athenian Vase Painting, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, no. N10, p. 137.
Photo by Steve Morton
