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DEACESSIONED September 21, 2006
Mixing bowl (bell krater)
Greek, South Italian
Classical Period
about 380–370 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Italy, Apulia
Medium/Technique
Ceramic, Red Figure
Dimensions
Height: 36.2 cm (14 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase with funds donated by Alfred Ajami, Esther Anderson, Edith Bundy, Robert S. Czachor, Barbara and Lawrence A. Fleischman, Jonathan H. Kagan, Bruce and Ingrid McAlpine, Josephine L. Murray, Robin Symes, and Catherine C. Vermeule
Accession Number1988.532
CollectionsEurope, Ancient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsVessels
Catalogue Raisonné
Vase-Painting in Italy (MFA), no. 015.
DescriptionA: Troilos and Achilles. Achilles, armed with a spear in his right hand and a large round shield in his left, rushes to the left toward the young Troilos, who is on horseback and holding a smaller throwing spear in his raised right hand. Both wear diaphanous short chitons of Italic type, with large white- and yellow-spotted belts and a single strap over one shoulder. Achilles wears boots, and his shield has a star device. Troilos's horse rears in fright as Achilles lunges at it with his spear, the cream-colored butt of which overlaps the tongues of the handle-root at the right. Yellow flowers hang from the upper frame and grow from the lower frame and the sloping ground beneath Achilles, which is composed of red, white, and cream-colored rocks.
B: Three youths in himatia and white fillets stand in conversation, the middle one holding a staff vertically in his extended right hand.
A laurel wreath circles the vase below the lip. Tongues partly surround the roots of the handles, below which are palmettes and tendrils. The lower frames on either side consist of groups of stopt maeanders to left alternating with saltire-squares.
In Athenian versions of the ambush of Troilos, Achilles is usually shown waiting to leap out and kill Troilos as the latter approaches a spring or pursuing the boy as he flees on horseback. Many South Italian renderings of the subject follow these traditional compositions with only minor variations; see A. Cambitoglou, in Studies Webster, II, pp. 1-21, pls. 1.1-1.18. In the Hoppin Painter's version, Achilles attacks from the front, and Troilos fights back in a vain effort to escape death. This scene is based on encounters between Greeks and Amazons in Athenian art of the latter part of the fifth century B.C.; see D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford, 1957), pl. 78. Even the garments are Amazonian in type; for example, the Lansdowne Amazon (Bothmer, Amazons, pl. 89, 3). Compare also the Lucanian bell-krater of about 350 at Yale (1913.323), where a Greek on horseback attacks an Amazon who is on foot: Trendall, LCS, p. 121, no. 609, pl. 61, 1-2; S. M. Burke and J. J. Pollitt, Greek Vases at Yale (New Haven, 1975), pp. 84-86, no. 67. Cambitoglou posits a "contrived" South Italian version of the story, with Achilles appearing before Troilos at a turn in the road, but it is more likely the painter, who perhaps never depicted the story before, simply borrowed wholesale the more familiar Amazonomachy composition.
The Hoppin Painter is named for a vase formerly in the collection of the classicist Joseph Hoppin and now in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University (inv. 1925.30.48: CVA Hoppin-Gallatin 1, pl. 18, 3-4; RVAp, I, p.105, no. 5/17). He was a follower of the Tarporley Painter and, like him, worked in the Plain style. The Hoppin Painter was a skilled draftsman. His human figures have an easy naturalism beyond the capacity of most South Italian vase-painters.
(Text from Vase-Painting in Italy, catalogue entry no. 15)
B: Three youths in himatia and white fillets stand in conversation, the middle one holding a staff vertically in his extended right hand.
A laurel wreath circles the vase below the lip. Tongues partly surround the roots of the handles, below which are palmettes and tendrils. The lower frames on either side consist of groups of stopt maeanders to left alternating with saltire-squares.
In Athenian versions of the ambush of Troilos, Achilles is usually shown waiting to leap out and kill Troilos as the latter approaches a spring or pursuing the boy as he flees on horseback. Many South Italian renderings of the subject follow these traditional compositions with only minor variations; see A. Cambitoglou, in Studies Webster, II, pp. 1-21, pls. 1.1-1.18. In the Hoppin Painter's version, Achilles attacks from the front, and Troilos fights back in a vain effort to escape death. This scene is based on encounters between Greeks and Amazons in Athenian art of the latter part of the fifth century B.C.; see D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford, 1957), pl. 78. Even the garments are Amazonian in type; for example, the Lansdowne Amazon (Bothmer, Amazons, pl. 89, 3). Compare also the Lucanian bell-krater of about 350 at Yale (1913.323), where a Greek on horseback attacks an Amazon who is on foot: Trendall, LCS, p. 121, no. 609, pl. 61, 1-2; S. M. Burke and J. J. Pollitt, Greek Vases at Yale (New Haven, 1975), pp. 84-86, no. 67. Cambitoglou posits a "contrived" South Italian version of the story, with Achilles appearing before Troilos at a turn in the road, but it is more likely the painter, who perhaps never depicted the story before, simply borrowed wholesale the more familiar Amazonomachy composition.
The Hoppin Painter is named for a vase formerly in the collection of the classicist Joseph Hoppin and now in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University (inv. 1925.30.48: CVA Hoppin-Gallatin 1, pl. 18, 3-4; RVAp, I, p.105, no. 5/17). He was a follower of the Tarporley Painter and, like him, worked in the Plain style. The Hoppin Painter was a skilled draftsman. His human figures have an easy naturalism beyond the capacity of most South Italian vase-painters.
(Text from Vase-Painting in Italy, catalogue entry no. 15)
Provenance1976, Palladion Antike Kunst, Basel [see note 1]. Holger Termer, Hamburg [see note 2]. By 1985, Royal-Athena Galleries, New York [see note 3]; 1988, sold by Royal-Athena Galleries to the MFA [see note 4]; September 21, 2006, deaccessioned by the MFA for transfer to the Republic of Italy.
NOTES:
[1] In the 1976 Palladion catalogue, no. 43. [2] According to A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, Second Supplement to the Red-Figured Vases of Apulia (London, 1991), p. 23: "ex Termer coll., Hamburg, then New York Market, Royal-Athena Galleries." [3] Royal Athena Galleries, Art of the Ancient World, IV, no. 105. [4] MFA accession date: December 21, 1988.
For further information, please see: http://www.mfa.org/collections/provenance/antiquities-and-cultural-property/italian-ministry-of-culture-agreement
NOTES:
[1] In the 1976 Palladion catalogue, no. 43. [2] According to A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, Second Supplement to the Red-Figured Vases of Apulia (London, 1991), p. 23: "ex Termer coll., Hamburg, then New York Market, Royal-Athena Galleries." [3] Royal Athena Galleries, Art of the Ancient World, IV, no. 105. [4] MFA accession date: December 21, 1988.
For further information, please see: http://www.mfa.org/collections/provenance/antiquities-and-cultural-property/italian-ministry-of-culture-agreement