A Vase in Form of a Bust of Athene

Extract

In the latter part of 1893 the British Museum acquired the Attic vase which is represented in Plate V. (E 716 of the new Catalogue). The photographic reduction barely serves to convey a summary impression of this finely conceived work, but can give no idea of the subtler refinement of modelling and surface, nor of the delicate colouring which is still fairly preserved, and which would defy reproduction in any process. It belongs to the class of vases which in the latter part of the fifth century came greatly in vogue in Attic pottery, and in which the front part is usually pressed in a mould, in the technique of terracotta statuettes, the back part is varnished and coloured like a red-figure vase of the period: the whole form is usually based on that of the aryballos or acorn-alabastron.

The present instance is an aryballos in the form of a bust of Athene: it is nearly intact, the only part broken away being the calix-form lip of the vase. The height as it stands is 20 cm., and perhaps 2 more should be added for the missing lip. The bust, cut off immediately below the lower base of the breasts, rests on a plinth about 1 cm. high, which is varnished black in front, and at back is painted with a band of egg moulding. It is modelled entirely in the round, but the plain surface of the drapery falling from the crown of the head down the back, and the back of the helmet, are treated as the back of an ordinary red-figure vase, and are decorated with the patterns usual in this class of aryballos: the neck of the vase rises vertically out of the crown of the helmet, at the point where the support for the crest would naturally be attached, and the ribbed handle, springing from the upper part of it, broadly suggests the lines which the back part of such a crest would follow. The true crest has been treated in the conventional manner which is not unfrequently found in fifth century art adapted to helmets intended to be seen from the front; that is, it is bisected longitudinally, and the two sides are turned outwards to the front in such a way that they form a continuous crest extending from ear to ear; in this case they serve the double purpose of a screen to mark the neck and handle of the vase, and a division between the polychrome and varnished portions of this part of the vase.