Whip-tops

Extract

In the British Museum there are two fifth-century Attic vases (Nos. D 9 and D 10) of bee-hive shape (Fig. 1), of which the decoration consists of a series of mouldings alternately red, white, and black, with a black rim; the interior is white, also with a black rim. In their general style, their technique, and their decoration they are very similar to another vase of the same collection, D 8, a phiale mesomphalos, which bears the signature of the potter Sotades. All three vases were in the Branteghem Collection, and were described by Froehner, in his Catalogue of that Collection, under Nos. 160–162.

In the third volume of the Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum I described these vases, D 9 and D 10, as ‘Mastoi’; this is a form which, of course, owes its name to the pretty fancy which derives it from the model of Aphrodite's breast, and so was a favourite form of dedication in her temple at Paphos.