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View: Side A
Stamnos
Italic, Etruscan
Classical Period
about 390–370 B.C.
Medium/Technique
Ceramic, Red Figure
Dimensions
29.2 cm (11 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
William Sturgis Bigelow Collection
Accession Number13.73
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAncient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsVessels
Catalogue Raisonné
Vase-Painting in Italy (MFA), no. 164.
DescriptionSide A: A youth and a maiden talking. She holds a pail (?) in her right hand.
Side B: Two nude youths. The one on the right advances towards the other, laying one hand upon his shoulders. The second carries a pail (?)
Below the pictures a meander. Drawing poor. Painted over.
ITALIAN VASE PAINTING in ITALY, #164 (13.73)
Stamnos
Etruscan
Attributed to the Workshop of the Painter of London
F484 (Herrmann)
about 390-370 B.C.
A: Two draped female figures touch one another affectionately. At the left is a woman in a chiton. The object in her right hand may be a small pail. Traces of added white survive on her face and arms. At the right is a figure in a chiton and himation. Faint traces of added white on the face indicate that this figure too is female. She is crowned with a wreath of laurel or olive in added color.
B: Two nude androgynous youths encounter one another. Faint traces of male genitals survive in the youth at the left. He wears a bandoleer in added yellow and carries a pail or situla that was covered with added white. Both have long, undulating locks of hair in slightly diluted glaze that descend just in front of and behind their ears. The youth at the right places one hand on the shoulder in the youth with the bandoleer and reaches out with the other hand, which his companion seems to fend off. The scene may be one of rejected courtship.
There are pairs of large, addorsed palmettes oriented vertically below and on either side of the handles. The tongues circling the upper shoulder are alternately black and reserved, the latter with black tips. The circling groundline consists of groups of stopt maeanders to right alternating with checkerboards. Inverted tongues seem to have decorated the rim.
Beazley did not associate this vase, whose deplorable modern retouching discouraged attention, with any well-defined group. The character of the palmette decoration, however, seems unmistakably linked to the Painter of London F484, an early ceramist of Vulci active in the last decade of the fifth century; the closest comparison seems to be that painter's name-vase in London (Beazley, EVP, pp. 43-45, pls. 7, e, 8, 1,2; for the date of the Painter of London F484, see Jolivet, Recherches, p. 10). In both stamnoi, the palmettes spread their fronds and float freely on the surface with large circles flanking the tip of the central frond. In the work of the Painter of London F484, the palmettes are even more spacious, and there are foliate embellishments, which are missing in this impoverished imitation. The lively, though primitiave figure style of the painter of this stamnos is not alien to that of the Painter of London F484, who was characterized by Beazley as having "the rude charm of popular art." It is probable that this vase was made at Vulci.
Side B: Two nude youths. The one on the right advances towards the other, laying one hand upon his shoulders. The second carries a pail (?)
Below the pictures a meander. Drawing poor. Painted over.
ITALIAN VASE PAINTING in ITALY, #164 (13.73)
Stamnos
Etruscan
Attributed to the Workshop of the Painter of London
F484 (Herrmann)
about 390-370 B.C.
A: Two draped female figures touch one another affectionately. At the left is a woman in a chiton. The object in her right hand may be a small pail. Traces of added white survive on her face and arms. At the right is a figure in a chiton and himation. Faint traces of added white on the face indicate that this figure too is female. She is crowned with a wreath of laurel or olive in added color.
B: Two nude androgynous youths encounter one another. Faint traces of male genitals survive in the youth at the left. He wears a bandoleer in added yellow and carries a pail or situla that was covered with added white. Both have long, undulating locks of hair in slightly diluted glaze that descend just in front of and behind their ears. The youth at the right places one hand on the shoulder in the youth with the bandoleer and reaches out with the other hand, which his companion seems to fend off. The scene may be one of rejected courtship.
There are pairs of large, addorsed palmettes oriented vertically below and on either side of the handles. The tongues circling the upper shoulder are alternately black and reserved, the latter with black tips. The circling groundline consists of groups of stopt maeanders to right alternating with checkerboards. Inverted tongues seem to have decorated the rim.
Beazley did not associate this vase, whose deplorable modern retouching discouraged attention, with any well-defined group. The character of the palmette decoration, however, seems unmistakably linked to the Painter of London F484, an early ceramist of Vulci active in the last decade of the fifth century; the closest comparison seems to be that painter's name-vase in London (Beazley, EVP, pp. 43-45, pls. 7, e, 8, 1,2; for the date of the Painter of London F484, see Jolivet, Recherches, p. 10). In both stamnoi, the palmettes spread their fronds and float freely on the surface with large circles flanking the tip of the central frond. In the work of the Painter of London F484, the palmettes are even more spacious, and there are foliate embellishments, which are missing in this impoverished imitation. The lively, though primitiave figure style of the painter of this stamnos is not alien to that of the Painter of London F484, who was characterized by Beazley as having "the rude charm of popular art." It is probable that this vase was made at Vulci.
Provenance1877: loaned to MFA by William Sturgis Bigelow; gift of William Sturgis Bigelow to MFA, January 2, 1913