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A Corinthian Plastic Vase in the National Museum at Athens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
This vase was formerly in the Lambros collection; it passed thence to the National Museum at Athens, where it now is. The provenience is unknown, but in view of its obviously Corinthian manufacture, it is interesting to record that the fragments of earth which the vase still contains are of a light yellowish-white colour and very crumbly, full of small root-slivers, perhaps from vines. This rather distinctive earth would seem to point to the Corinthia, and it is a probable conjecture that the vase hails from a Corinthian grave.
The vase is 88 mm. tall by 55 mm. broad at the base. The form is unique among Corinthian plastic vases; the shape is that of a round-topped cone; a section of the periphery equal to about one-third of the circumference is flattened to form the front of the vase. On this flat side is modelled in high relief the head of an early archaic seilen, whose general characteristics will be easily gathered from the accompanying photographs. Below the neck of the seilen is a horizontal painted strip, evidently indicating some garment which he is wearing.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1935
References
1 No. 12476. Published here by kind permission of Mrs. S. Karouzou.
2 A good example on the comast vase in Clar Rhodos, VI–VII, pl. iv.
3 Maximowa, , Vases Plastiques, p. 142Google Scholar.
4 For this decoration, see below, p. 127.
5 An unusual feature in the first quarter of the sixth century; cf. Payne, , Necrocorinthia, p. 48Google Scholar, ‘White is never used for broad surfaces before the late Corinthian period.’
6 Payne, o.c., pp. 234 ff.
7 Pottier, in BCH 1895, pp. 225–35Google Scholar; CVA Louvre 8, III Cc, pl. 34.
8 Payne, o.c. pl. 48.
9 Ibid. p. 233.
10 B.M. 60.4–4.35, from Camirus; cf. Payne, o.c. pp. 177–8, and fig. 81, B; published by kind permission of Mr. E. J. Forsdyke.
11 Payne, o.c. p. 177.
12 Ibid. pp. 235–6. The same result is obtained by a comparison with the copies of Corinthian figures on an Italian vase in Berlin; Furtwängler, Cat. no. 3984; V. Müller, Der Polos, pl. IV. Both figures are obviously provincial copies, but the style of their originals is clear. The man's head is in its oblong shape and flat frontality closer to the seilen than to the comast. The woman, ex hypothesi contemporary with the man, is a provincial version of Payne, o.c., pl. 48, 8–9, which he dates to the opening years of the sixth century.
13 We do well to note that this vase is a real seilen-or satyr-vase; whereas the comast vases, though often referred to as such, are not; cf. Pottier, , BCH xix, 1895, p. 228Google Scholar; Maximowa, o.c. p. 139, etc. Payne's comments (o.c. p. 120) should be noted. Our vase proves that the Peloponnesians were just as conversant with the equine seilen-satyr as anyone else.
14 Blinkenberg, Lindos, pl. 127, no. 2629.
15 Furtwängler-Reichhold, Textband III, Abb. 104. Buschor (ib. p. 215) dates the vase 580–570 B.C.
16 Furtwängler-Reichhold, I, pl. 11.
17 Men; cf. the Vienna swinger (Maximowa, o.c. pl. xlii, 157), though the detail is not visible in her photograph. Women; Payne, o.c. pl. 48, 1, 4, 8, etc.
18 Cf. RE III, pp. 37, 38 (Hartmann). The Seilen and Nymph terracotta group (Olympia, III, pl. 7) is, however, probably Laconian (cf. BSA xxxiii, p. 66), and the seilen revetments from Thermon (AD II, pl. 53, 1, 2) are certainly Corinthian.