Baltimore, Hopkins AIA B5
Kylix by the Kiss Painter
ca. 500 B.C.
B 5. Baltimore Society AIA, formerly Hartwig Collection. "Chiusi."
Ht, 11 cm; diam with handles, 38.7 cm; diam rim, 30.7 cm; diam foot, 11.1 cm.
Mended from many pieces.
Interior
Standing on exergue is bearded male facing front. His weight is on
his right leg; his left knee is bent with foot behind him. He wears a mantle
brought over his left shoulder, exposing right shoulder and chest. Right hand on
hip; left arm extended, with hand holding end of staff. His head, seen in right
profile, wears an ivy wreath. Facing him is a nude youth wearing a laurel
wreath, legs in left profile, torso three-quarters turned to front. He stands on
a two-stepped starting block and holds an aryballos and sponge in left hand. In
field are aryballos and sponge suspended from nail. An upended pick is set in
ground in front of base. Inscribed in field, second word retrograde:
ΛΕΑΓΡΟΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ (Leagros
is beautiful).
Tondo is bordered by reserved band.
Exterior, Side A
Striding youth with mantle draped over shoulders carries skyphos in
left hand and staff supporting oinochoe in right. Inscribed in field above tip
of staff:
Ε. Youth approaches
a large-column krater, on the other side of which is a nude youth with himation
over shoulders. Inscribed in field beneath figures:
ΚΑΛΟΣ (beautiful).
Rest of scene consists of one striding nude youth and another in
draped himation.
Exterior, Side B
Standing bearded male extends left hand to approaching youth, who
carries skyphos in extended right hand, staff in left. Both figures are nude,
with mantles draped over shoulders. Remainder of scene consists of beardless
youth in right profile, nude except for mantle over shoulders, playing flutes.
In front of him is maiden, of whom only a part of pleated chiton and mantle survives. Inscribed in field
above all four figures:
ΕΠ]ΙΔΡΟΜΟΣ [Κ]ΑΛΟΣ.
Relief contour throughout interior and exterior, except for some feet
on exterior. Hairline reserved at forehead and nape and incised at crown. Dilute
glaze for inner markings. Added red: interior—wreath, javelin loop,
string and wristband of aryballoi, nail securing one aryballos, lettering;
exterior—lettering. Graffito on underside of foot.
The Kiss Painter is known from only five cups. He takes his name from
the affectionate scenes on the tondos of kylixes in Berlin and New York.
1 All but one of the cups has a komos scene on the exterior. The Baltimore
vase is the only inscribed example and bears within the tondo the well-known
love name Leagros, which appears on a number of black-figure vases of about this
date.
2 The inscription on the exterior,
epidromos
kalos, praises the delights of athletic pursuits.
The profile of the vase resembles those of kylixes by the potter
Kachrylion, to whom this cup has been attributed.
3 Kachrylion also fashioned the kylix to which our fragment by Oltos (
Baltimore, Hopkins AIA B1) belonged, and
possibly made the cup that was decorated by Phintias (
Baltimore, Hopkins AIA B4).
The scene in the tondo takes place in a palaestra, where youths
trained in the various sports whose equipment is depicted here: the casting of
the javelin, the broad jump (for which a pick was used to measure distances),
and the foot race, which made use of a starting gate, a block of which is
probably shown here.
4 The aryballos contained the olive oil that athletes applied with a
sponge before exercising.
The advances made by vasepainters of about 500 B.C. can be seen in
the foreshortened frontal leg of the trainer in the tondo and the three-quarter
positions of the youthful torsos on the tondo and exterior. Also typical of
vasepainting from the end of the sixth century is the use of dilute glaze for
interior markings.
The large bodies with protruding buttocks and the expanses of flesh
and drapery uninterrupted by detail recall the similar broad style of the
contemporary Euthymides.
5
The graffito on the underside of the foot is one of several examples
that are found on many vases dating between ca. 550 and 500 B.C. These markings
are believed to have been applied to vases intended for export, especially to
Etruria, and to signify prices and other commercial information relating to the
sale of the vessels.
6
Bibliography
K. Wernicke, AZ 43 (1885):255,
no. 16, pl. 19.2;
P. Hartwig,
RömMitt 2 (1887):167, no.
2;
Wernicke 1889, 41, no.
20;
Hartwig 1893, 39-43, figs.
5a-b;
Klein 1898, 75, no. 20, fig.
15;
Beazley 1918, 22;
Hoppin 1919, vol. I, 176, no.
20;
K. Elderkin, HSCP 35
(1924):119, no. 2;
Beazley
1925, 54, no. 3;
A.
Raubitschek, Hesperia 8
(1939):162;
M. Guarducci, Annuario, NS 3-4 (1941-42), 132;
CVA, USA fasc. 6, Robinson fasc. 2,
13-14, pls. V, VI.1;
ARV2, 177,
no. 3.
