Vases

Greek, An Attic red-figure kylix, attributed to the Group of the Penthesilea Painter , circa 430-420 BC

Greek

An Attic red-figure kylix, attributed to the Group of the Penthesilea Painter , circa 430-420 BC

Pottery

Diameter at rim: 20.5 cm
Width including handles: 26.8 cm

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Further images

The vessel is of an elegant continuous outline with a slight step at the foot. The red-figure decoration consists of figural scenes. The tondo shows a himation-clad youth leaning on...

The vessel is of an elegant continuous outline with a slight step at the foot. The red-figure decoration consists of figural scenes. The tondo shows a himation-clad youth leaning on a staff conversing with a heavily-swathed female figure. There is a border of meander and dotted and crossed squares. The exterior shows what appears to be a komos (a symposiac procession) with two nude youths dancing on one side, flanking a girl wearing a chiton and himation. The other side shows a similarly draped girl seated on a stool, flanked by equally exuberant dancing nude men, one a clean-shaven youth, the other is bearded.

Provenance

Henry Purkitt Kidder (1823 - 1886) Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts before 1880
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acc. no. 80.538, gifted in 1880 by H.P. Kidder
Sotheby's, New York, 12 June 2001, lot 263

Literature

This cup was attributed by Beazley as belonging to the group/workshop of the Penthesilea Painter. Beazley named the Penthesilea Painter after the Amazonomachy tondo on a cup in Munich, featuring a Greek hero killing an Amazon, presumably Penthesilea. He appears mainly to have decorated cups such as this example and seems to have been the leading painter in a large workshop who followed his style closely.

For a cup with similar draped women and dancing nude men at a komos, now in Berlin, Antikensammlung (inv. no. F2529), see Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 9017560.

Publications

E. Robinson, Catalogue of Greek, Roman and Etruscan Vases, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 1893, no. 396
J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd edition, Oxford, 1963, 966.6
Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 213134

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