Attic red-figure Pelike
Creators: name: Museum, Centre for Ancient Cultures
Publisher: name: Monash University
Year: 2022
Subjects: Archaeology of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Levant
Heritage, archive and museum studies not elsewhere classified
Archaeology not elsewhere classified
Ceramics
Classical Greek and Roman history
Other history, heritage and archaeology not elsewhere classified

description: <br> Attic red-figured pelike (storage-jar), probably used to store wine. Although similar to the more standard amphora storage jar, a pelike always had a flared base and could stand on its own unlike an amphora that often required a separate jar stand. This vase has a bulbous body with sloping shoulders; it is painted in black glaze with a broad foot and two vertical handles. The rounded rim is painted in black. The figured scenes on both sides are bordered at the top by an ivy-wreath within reserved bands. On side (a), the mythical birth of Dionysus from a thigh of Zeus: on the right, a woman, possibly the goddess Hera faces left, her hair is tied up with a wreath of ivies, and she wears a peplos with an overfold (apoptygma). Facing her on the left, a sitting Zeus, bearded and wearing himation and chiton; in his right hand he holds a long stick, possibly a scepter. The wine god Dionysus stands on the lap of Zeus and holds a wine cup and a vine. On side (b), two young draped men facing each other: man on the right bends on a walking stick; man on the left wears a cloak over a chiton that obscures his arms. Both scenes are enclosed in vertical geometrical bands with a chain of dots pattern. Stylistic remarks: The vessel forms part of the group of ceramics attributed to the Nausicaä Painter. Object number: 127.032. Date: 460–440 BCE Parallels: extremely similar examples New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 06.1021.144 (Nausicaä Painter); compare with the style of 41.162.69 (e.g. ivy-frieze, faces, position of standing old man on the right; Nausicaä Painter); compare the style of London, British Museum 1846,0128.1 (Nausicaä Painter); details of Paris, Louvre G 345 (Nausicaä Painter); for the scene of mythical birth Ferrara, National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara 2737; for the scene of two youths London, British Museum 1859,0216.111 and Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 0300680060, 1600014003. References: Walters, H B., Forsdyke, E J., Smith, C. H., <em>Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum</em>, London: BMP, 1893-1925; Richter, G. M. A. and Hall, L. F., <em>Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art</em>, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936, no. 72, pp. 100–1, pls. 75, 173; Richter, G. M. A., <em>Handbook of the Greek Collection</em>, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953, p. 84; Beazley, J. D., <em>Attic Red-figure Vase-painters</em>, Vols. 1 and 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963, p. 1107, no. 10; Maffre, J-J., "Deux pélikai attiques à figures rouges trouvées à Thasos", <em>Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique</em>, 1972, 96(1): p. 336 n. 17; Padgett, M., <em>Phineus and the Boreads on a pelike by the Nausica painter</em>, Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1991; Mannack, T., <em>The Late Mannerists in Athenian Vase Painting</em>, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001, no. N10, p. 137.Photo by Steve Morton