Collection: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, the University of Michigan
Summary: Man crushing grapes in pithos.
Ware: Attic Red Figure
Painter: Attributed to a cup painter of "The Coarser Wing"
Context: Said to be from Bolsena
Date: ca. 500 BC
Dimensions:

h. 12.3 cm; d. of mouth 32.9 cm; w. handle to handle 41.6 cm; d. of foot 12.3 cm; d. of resting surface 11.8 cm; d. of tondo 12.5 cm.
Primary Citation: ARV2, 1593, mentioned under no. 37
Shape: Kylix
Region: Etruria
Period: Archaic

Condition:

Where it remains, the original black is of very good quality. Much of the rim is painted over, so that it is hard to tell if it was not once reserved. It probably was not.

Decoration Description:

The outside of the cup is all black except for three areas, each of which visually serves to bind one part of the vase to another: the inside of each handle, including the body of the vase between the roots, and the outside of the base together with the resting surface underneath. Elsewhere, the underside is painted shiny black up to the hollow cylinder of the stem, which is reserved inside.

Inside, the cup is black except for the picture in the tondo. Within a reserved circle, a naked young man is shown supporting himself by two overhead straps, leaving his feet free to work in a large jar (pithos); he is crushing grapes. The outline of the head is incised. Around the entire hair-line are raised dots to indicate curls, some laid over the incised outline. Around his head is a wreath in red paint. The pithos is shown with handle toward the viewer. There are indications that a painted circle might have lined the inner side of the reserved border. Sketch lines are visible for the circular border of the tondo, and sketch lines indicate that the left side of the pithos rim was first begun a little further to the left. The broad preliminary contour is visible everywhere. There is relief outline everywhere but on a small part of the right hand along the little finger and palm; there seems to have been none around the circular border. Dilute glaze is used for inner markings on the torso.

The painter of this cup was working around the turn of the sixth century, at the same time as the Chaire Painter, who did the cup from Indianapolis with the long-backed woman at a pithos (Indianapolis 47.37). They were of the same milieu, painters working in the tradition of the Nikosthenes Painter (see Kansas City 52.22, and Moon 1979, no. 69) making vases for the less luxurious table. The alabastron by the Painter of Berlin 2268, Moon 1979, no. 89, is from the same group, and so is a cup in the Art Institute in the manner of the Epileios Painter (ARV2, 148, no. 4), and another in his manner in East Lansing, Michigan State University (Para., 335 below).

Pictures showing a figure at a large vessel were popular at the time—one painter, the Pithos Painter, was so named for his frequent use of the subject. The Indianapolis lady was probably washing clothes or her self, but our young man is working at the vintage, involved in the process of oxygenating the fermenting wine, according to Jehasse (infra, p. 3f). More extensive pictures of the vintage, usually performed by satyrs from the retinue of the wine-god, Dionysos, include figures engaged in similar activities. Pithoi of the type shown are thought to be forerunners of the bell-krater shape (see Moon 1979, no. 117).

Our painter has not yet been identified, but such traits as the short horizontal line below the join of the breast lines and the voluted ear may help to pin him down. The outline of his hair, incised instead of reserved, speaks for a painter still in touch with the black-figure tradition. Beazley compared the cup with one inscribed "Leagros Kalos," now in Hamburg, and the Hamburg cup with another bearing the inscription "Leagros Kalos" and the signature of the potter Kachrylion (ARV2, infra, and Para., 507, above). The foot of the Ann Arbor cup, with its slight ridge breaking the spread of the upper surface, the narrow insets around the edges of the disk, the proportions of disk and stem, is similar to that of a cup made by Kachrylion, London E 40. It is similar also, though somewhat less so, to those of so-called "reichen" foot-profile, as for example Munich 2618 and London E 16. All three were painted by Oltos (see Bloesch 1940, pp. 47, 49, 50 and pls. 12, 1 and 14, 1 and 2). The nipple at the top of the inside of the hollow stem occurs on a cup made by the potter Pamphaios and painted by Epiktetos, London E 16 (Bloesch 1940, p. 64, no. 14 and p. 66, and cf. Oberlin 67.61).

See Toledo 1963.28 for interesting observations on cups with feet and tondos of equal diameter. For "The Coarser Wing", ARV2, 122-158; for vintage scenes, L. Jehasse in MonPiot 58(1972) 36 ff., with references.

Shape Description:

The kylix is of type B, where the profile of cup and stem forms a continuous curve. A slight ridge on the upper surface of the foot breaks the curve as if to mark the point where the weight of the cup falls. The disk of the base is narrowly inset at the upper edge, and below, where the resting surface is formed; the stem is hollow inside, up to a nippled surface about 5.5 cm from the bottom of the foot.

Graffiti:

Inscribed in large red letters, top to bottom along the figure's left side: *K*A*L*O*S (beautiful).

Essay:

Moon No. 87

Collection History:

Ex Schweizer Collection, Arlesheim

Sources Used:

Moon 1979, no. 87, pp. 150-151

Other Bibliography:

ARV2, 1593, mentioned under no. 37; Münzen, no. 88, Ill; Research News, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, vol. xxiii, no. 5 (November, 1972) 22, ill.