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View: Side A
Mixing bowl (bell-krater)
Painter: The Bendis Painter
Greek, South Italian
Classical Period
about 370–360 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Italy, Apulia
Medium/Technique
Ceramic, Red Figure
Dimensions
Height: 43 cm (16 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule III in the Name of Cornelius Adrian Comstock Vermeule
Accession Number1983.553
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope, Ancient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsVessels
Catalogue Raisonné
Vase-Painting in Italy (MFA), no. 016.
DescriptionA: Bendis stands to the right with a spear held vertically in her right hand. She wears yellow earrings, yellow necklace, embades, a chiton, a yellow belt, a Phyrigian cap, embroidered trousers, and a sleeved tunic - appropritae garb for a goddess from barbarian Thrace. Bendis offers a drink from a yellow phiale in her left hand to a hare held by Apollo, who is seated to the left on a folded cloak. Apollo wears a white wreath, and his quiver, decorated with a wave-pattern, hangs at his left side on a baldric. In his left hand he holds a tree that does not really resemble laurel. Hermes stands at the right, wearing a petasos and chlamys, his caduceus in his lowered right hand. The chlamys is pinned at his throat by a yellow brooch. In the field above the hare is a yellow star.
B: Three youths stand clad in himatia. The one at the left holds a strigil in his extended right hand. The middle youth crowns the one on the right with a fillet. The latter holds a staff vertically in his extended right hand.
A laurel wreath circles the vase below the lip. The baseline consists of triple linked maeanders to left alternationg with saltire-squares. There are palmettes and scrolling tendrils under the handles, the roots of which are partly surrounded by tongues.
The Bendis Painter was a close associate of the Adolphseck Painter and the Painter of the Long Overfalls. Like them, he was a follower of the Tarporley Painter and worked in the Plain style. This is not his only name-vase, as several other works also represent Artemis-Bendis in oriental costume. The significance of the hare in this example is not clear. For Bendis in South Italian vase-painting, see K. Schauenburg, Jdl 89 (1974), pp. 137-86; see also Z. Goceva and D. Popov, LIMC, III, 1, pp. 95-97; III, 2, pls. 73-74.
(text from Vase-Painting in Italy, catalogue entry no. 16)
B: Three youths stand clad in himatia. The one at the left holds a strigil in his extended right hand. The middle youth crowns the one on the right with a fillet. The latter holds a staff vertically in his extended right hand.
A laurel wreath circles the vase below the lip. The baseline consists of triple linked maeanders to left alternationg with saltire-squares. There are palmettes and scrolling tendrils under the handles, the roots of which are partly surrounded by tongues.
The Bendis Painter was a close associate of the Adolphseck Painter and the Painter of the Long Overfalls. Like them, he was a follower of the Tarporley Painter and worked in the Plain style. This is not his only name-vase, as several other works also represent Artemis-Bendis in oriental costume. The significance of the hare in this example is not clear. For Bendis in South Italian vase-painting, see K. Schauenburg, Jdl 89 (1974), pp. 137-86; see also Z. Goceva and D. Popov, LIMC, III, 1, pp. 95-97; III, 2, pls. 73-74.
(text from Vase-Painting in Italy, catalogue entry no. 16)
ProvenanceBy 1936: A. Ruesch Collection, Zurich (Auction Fischer, Lucerne, 1936, lot 30); by 1958: with Münzen und Medaillen A.G., Malzgasse 25, Basel (auction 18, November 29, 1958, lot 147); February 1959: purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule III from Münzen und Medaillen A.G.; loaned to MFA by Mr. and Mrs. Vermeule, August 1, 1964 (loan no. 106.64); Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius C. Vermeule III to MFA, December 7, 1983