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View: Side A

Stamnos

Italic, Etruscan
Classical Period
about 480–450 B.C.

Medium/Technique Ceramic, Superposed Color
Dimensions 25 cm (9 13/16 in.)
Credit Line Gift of H. P. Kidder
Accession Number80.596
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsVessels

Catalogue Raisonné Vase-Painting in Italy (MFA), no. 154.
DescriptionSide A: Youth leading a ram to the altar.
Side B: Youth with spear, walking to left.

ITALIAN VASE PAINTING in ITALY, #154 (80.596)
Stamnos
Etruscan
Attributed to the Praxias Group (the same painter as cat. no. 153)
about 480-450 B.C.
A: A youth with a chlamys over his left shoulder and arm walks to the left. His head is turned back, perhaps to look at the ram he is leading to the altar at left. He holds a knife in his raised right hand and one of the ram's horns in the left. A plant with leaves like thyrsos heads grows in the background at the right.
B: A youth is striding to the left with a spear in his lowered left hand and his right arm outstretched. He wears a fillet, and his cloak hangs around both shoulders. It may be at him that the youth on side A is looking, although it is not clear why an armed man would be hastening to intrude on a sacrifice.
A band of crude,unframed egg-and-dart circles the upper shoulder; compare those on the column-krater, cat. no. 153.
The painter, who also decorated the preceding column-krater (cat. no. 153), was imitating Attic models; his style recalls that of the Pan Painter. For the subject of side A, compare an Attic kylix fragment by the Kleomelos Painter (Malibu 83.AE.323: Getty-MusJ 12[1984], p. 246, no.72). Within the Praxias Group, a stamnos from Chiusi is close in style (Florence, inv. Vagonville 14: Martelli, Ceramica, p. 189, pl. 140). For the curious plant on side A, compare the one on another stamnos of this type, now lost (Beazley, EVP, p. 197, no. 39; A. Greifenhagen, RM 85 [1978], pl. 23).
Like other vases of the Praxias Group, this piece was probably produced at Vulci.
Provenancegift of Henry P. Kidder to MFA, October 21, 1880