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View: Side A

Jar (stamnos) with female athletes bathing

Greek
Classical Period
440–430 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Greece, Attica, Athens

Medium/Technique Ceramic, Red Figure
Dimensions Overall: 41 x 31.5 cm (16 1/8 x 12 3/8 in.)
Credit Line Catharine Page Perkins Fund
Accession Number95.21
ClassificationsVessels

DescriptionSide A: Three nude women at a bath basin, two holding strigils and one washing her hands in the basin after exercising. A short female slave in a peplos carries a garment over her shoulder and holds a unguent container (plemochoe) in her right hand. A Doric column stands in the center of the scene. Two mirrors hang on the wall. In the field the Greek inscription: "Hediste is beautiful ("Hediste kale"). The word 'Hediste' above the heads of the women at left, and 'kale' above the heads of the women at right.
Side B: Two women, facing right, one holding a mirror, and the other with her hair in a sakkos, and a youth wearing a himation and holding a walking stick, facing left. A ribbon or sash is hung in the background.

[Label text]:
The vase-painter has rendered a scene of a bath-house on this large jar. Four women stand around a large basin. The young woman to the far right may be a slave assisting the women in their bathing. The women use strigils to clean themselves. These curved metal implements were used to scrape dirt and oil from the surface of the skin. Behind the women, two mirrors hang on the wall.
Inscriptions"Hediste is beautiful"
Side A: HΕDΙSΤΕ ΚΑLΕ
ProvenanceBy 1893: S. Pascale collection; by 1895: with Edward Perry Warren (according to Warren's records: found at Vico); 1895: purchased by MFA from Edward Perry Warren for $ 29,857.37 (this figure is the total price for MFA 95.9-95.174)