Greek
An Attic red-figure bell krater, Late Classical, circa 430 - 400 BC
Pottery
Height: 27 cm
Side A with a scene of a mother saying farewell to her son who is departing with his horse for military service as an ephebe. The young man is shown...
Side A with a scene of a mother saying farewell to her son who is departing with his horse for military service as an ephebe. The young man is shown leaning on two spears and wearing travelling clothes composed of a chlamys cloak with a banded border, the scabbard of his sword is sticking out from beneath his cloak. His petasos hat is slung behind his head and he is wearing soft boots. His unsaddled horse has a simple rein and stands behind him. His mother is depicted draped in a long chiton and she is wearing a saccos on her head. She offers a phiale out towards her son, and holds a trefoil-lipped oinochoe in her right hand behind her. Side B depicts a frontally facing draped young woman, flanked on either side by young men wearing himatia.
Provenance
German private collection, before 2000With Galerie Jürgen Haering, Freiburg, Germany, June 2005
With Charles Ede Limited, London, acquired 2005
UK private collection, 2006
Literature
This krater with the simplicity and elegance of its draughtsmanship is close to the Eupolis Painter and works by the Villa Giulia Painter. For a similar horse on a krater by the Eupolis Painter in Ferrara, Museo Nazionale di Spina: T203, see F. Berti and P.G. Guzzo, (eds.), Spina, Storia di una citta tra Greci ed Etruschi, Ferrara, 1993, p. 98, fig. 76. For a similar chlamys and petasos-clad youth on a Late Classical krater attributed to the Polygnotus Group, perhaps by the Christie Painter, see BAPD no. 8514.For discussion of vases depicting the departure scenes of ephebes, see S.B. Matheson, 'A Farewell With Arms: Departing Warriors on Athenian Vases,' in J.M. Barringer and J.M. Hurwit, eds., Periklean Athens and its Legacy, Austin, 2005, pp. 23-35.
The use of frontal figures is unusual. Compare a column krater by the Eupolis Painter in Mount Holyoake College: BAPD no. 214450. For a hairstyle related to the male figure on side A, see side B on a bell krater in Syracuse: J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1963, p. 1073.3 (BAPD no. 214434).