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Selected Vase-Fragments from the Acropolis of Athens—III

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

I am privileged to publish here a few very interesting fragments of Acropolis vases, the paintings of which are executed wholly or partially on a white ground. Naturally the number of these fragments is comparatively small, but they are of greater interest than those of black-figured or red-figured technique, as enlarging the somewhat meagre list of extant specimens of this class. When I last had the opportunity of examining the collection, before it had been removed from the Acropolis and undergone the systematic sorting so ably performed by Drs. Wolters and Graef, and subsequently by Dr. P. Hartwig, there were portions of fourteen vases, the majority of which were kylikes, a few having the white ground on both sides of the vase but most of them showing a combination of a plain varnished or a red-figured exterior with interior scenes painted on a white ground, or even a white slip outside and of work within. Inasmuch as the whole collection has now been worked over, it is not worth while to enumerate the total, as it appeared some years ago. In the case of the most interesting vase, which now appears for the first time (Plate X.), I have reason to believe that all extant fragments are included in the Plate, several additional drawings having been executed by M. Gilliéron, whose work, it is needless to say, is characterized by its usual admirable fidelity.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1894

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References

1 The Gotha kylix (Mon. x. 37) is no longer an isolated experiment,' if it is, as Klein puts it, a ‘Missgriff’ unworthy of Hiero. There is certainly no reasonable ground for connecting it with that master.

2 One can hardly see here a publie sacrifice, as Benndorf suggests.

3 Of course successive moments of an action are often represented on a vase as if simultaneous, but not moments separated by a considerable interval of time.

4 The chiton is white, as is that of Athena, and on it are traces of red colour, but probably these are not original but due to the damaged state of the vase.

5 There was a temple of an Athena Ἀσία at Las in Laconia (Pans. 3, 4, 25), and its association with Kolchis through the Dioskuri-legend proves an early connexion of Athena with the Argonautie cycle, long before Apollonios, and the vase above-mentioned shows this to be correct for the 5th century.

6 The publication of this vase in the Monumenti is a bad one. I suspect the vase may have undergone some restoration. The bird carried by Athena is suspicious. It is usually called an owl (so Seeliger in Roscher's Lexikon, s.v. Iason), but if so, what an owl for an Athenian painter of all people! If the bird is genuine, which I doubt, is it meant for an iynx?