The momentous achievement of Greek art lies in its breakthrough from the Archaic style to the Classical, from the ‘conceptual’ to the ‘perceptual’ mode of visual expression. This revolution, as it may justifiably be called and whose seeds were sown as early as the late 6th century B.C., has been seen as, in effect, the birth of European art. In terms of vase painting the black-figure amphoras in the Gallery collection fall on one side of the watershed, the red-figure pieces on the other.
Even if the Greek revolution on the ‘modern’ side of the watershed engages at least our historical interest most keenly, the preceding centuries leading up to it cannot be ignored. In this long formative period an Archaic Greek style was progressively evolved, not naive but complex and specific in artistic character, and thereby to an extent conditioning the nature of the reaction to itself. In this process three stages may be discerned in painted pottery, our richest source: the establishment of a strict conceptual figure style within the Geometric period by the mid-8th century B.C.; its relaxation and invigoration during the Orientalising phase at the end of the same century and on into the 7th; and, ultimately, the creation of the coherent, advanced black-figure style of the 6th century. The National Gallery’s new acquisition (figs 1–4),1 Accession no. D23/1982 Felton Bequest 1982 Ht 45.5 cm maximum diameter of body 23.6 cm Ht of neck 15.5 cm diameter of neck 11.3 cm. The vase has been restored from numerous fragments, the main areas missing being at the back between the handles, below the right handle, and parts of the lower bands. The clay is a warm, fawn buff colour, the paint has fired a rich brown, almost chocolate colour. The plastic snakes are painted, and there are three painted lines inside the mouth. There has possibly been some retouching, particularly the darker streaks on the lions but, if so, without any falsification of the original design. made in Athens close to 700 B.C., takes its place in the crucial period of transition from the first to the second of these stages, and indeed is of unusual interest since it contributes importantly to our knowledge of that transition.
It is now clear that in these early centuries Athens was a leading, if not always the dominant, force in painted pottery. Certainly she was the energy centre from the 10th to the 8th centuries, in the time of the Protogeometric and succeeding Geometric styles. Not only were intricate patterns of purely linear decoration elaborated and deployed with conspicuous tectonic ability but, apparently motivated by the desire to depict funerary ceremonial on monumental vases which were fashionable for about a single generation as grave markers, a fitting figure style was invented about 760 B.C. at the beginning of the Late Geometric period. A famous example, exceptionally fine but severely restrained, is the belly-handled amphora, Athens NM 804 (figs 5–6).2 Coldstream, p. 29.1, pl. 6 (Dipylon Master, LG la); Ahlberg, no. 2; Arias-Hirmer, pl. 4; Davison, fig. 1; Schweitzer, pls 30–31. The loosening of this style during the second half of the 8th century, accompanied by degeneration of the geometric ornamentation and its relegation to the subsidiary but important role of framing the enhanced figure areas, can be illustrated by comparing the smaller neck-handled amphora in Baltimore, formerly Havana, some fifty years later near the end of Geometric (fig. 7).3 Baltimore, 48.2231; Coldstream, p. 58.7 (Painter of Athens 894, LG llb); Ahlberg, no. 37; Davison, fig. 35. Characteristic changes include less static poses and relief of the plain silhouette to allow depiction of an eye or a cross-hatched skirt. The primary impulse must have been the wish to paint scenes of more convincing action, and hence of narrative import; but a contributory factor, even within Late Geometric itself, was the impact of influences from Near Eastern art which, besides encouraging a more fluent style, introduced to Greek artists a menagerie of ferocious animals, mostly hybrid monsters, as well as curvilinear decorative motifs. The result was the more lively Orientalising style in which, despite its conventional name, Greek artists utilised Eastern influences without succumbing to them. In this stage, which began by the end of the 8th century, Athens was challenged for leadership by Corinth; if the artists of Protoattic (the name given to the Athenian variety of the new Orientalising style) frequently surpassed Corinth in vigour and at times a bold, experimental expressiveness, they could not rival Protocorinthian elegance and precision fostered by adoption of the technique which formed the eventual basis for the black-figure styles of the mature Archaic period.
Both the form of the new acquisition and its figurative decoration reveal its transitional character, looking backwards to the traditions of Attic Geometric and forwards to Protoattic. In regard to form, the vase is a hydria or water jar, with the regular complement of one vertical handle and two smaller belly handles. This shape is found from the first half of the 8th century, and even has a Protogeometric prototype, as a serviceable pot; but a new version, more finely made and carefully decorated, appeared within the latest phase of Geometric, Late Geometric llb c. 720–700 B.C.4 Coldstream, p. 60; Brann, in Agora VIII, pp. 34–35. Thereafter this refined version, as distinct from the coarse domestic variety, had primarily a ceremonial function, whether made from clay or from bronze, of which many superb examples survive. Apart from its uses where water was required in such ceremonies as festive or celebratory symposia and sacrifices or libations to deities (the youthful hydrophoroi participating in the Panathenaic procession on the Parthenon frieze are an outstanding visual example), and apart from its extended use as a votive offering or agonistic prize, the most particular function and association was with funerary rite and cult. Water was important both in washing the dead and in purification of the family, regarded as polluted until this rite was completed; it also figured prominently in the cult of the dead, as is attested by the frequent offerings of hydrias deposited in graves and by the common appearance in vase paintings of hydrias carried to or placed by tombs. Stranger, but also frequent, is the use of the hydria as an ash receptacle in cremations; it has been suggested that this is due to symbolic connection with the belief that in the underworld the dead were to drink the waters of Lethe, the stream of forgetfulness of life.5 Erika Diehl, in her authoritative work on the hydria, properly emphasises the funerary functions and connotations of the shape, dealing fully with its use in graves (pp. 67–128), in cult of the dead (pp. 128–46), and as an ash container (pp. 146–68). Briefly, see Kurtz & Boardman, pp. 149–61 and 209–10, with references on pp. 359, 363; their pl. 21 illustrates an elaborate set of vase offerings, including a hydria, found in a 5th-century grave in the Kerameikos. It is likely that such functions account for the rapid proliferation of the refined ceremonial hydria; this supposition is probable in spite of the fact that regrettably very few have specific provenance (perhaps only one, from the excavations in the Agora, was definitely found in a grave).
Some thirty-five examples of this refined type are now known, dating from the forty or fifty years, c. 720–675 B.C., which span the last phase of Geometric and the first phase of Protoattic.6 This is not the place to discuss in detail these hydrias, which deserve treatment in their own right. Briefly, I accept the following: LG llb, 12 examples: Diehl Τ 86, 91, 92, 90, 93 (= Coldstream, p. 59.25–29); Coldstream, p. 59.30–32; Diehl Τ 88 (= Coldstream, p. 59.33); Coldstream, p. 67.12; Diehl Τ 83 (= Coldstream, p. 78.28); Τ 84; EPA, 23 examples, though including some on the border with Geometric and others classifiable as Sub-geometric: Diehl Τ 87, 89, 94–96, 136–50 (but 147 is probably Middle Protoattic) with the addition of Melbourne, Liverpool City Museum (known to me only from On View 3, 1968/69, p. 41 with illus.) and Mainz University 47 (CVA, Mainz 1, tat. 6). Other, incomplete lists, can be found in G. Bakalakis, AM 76, 1961, pp. 60–66, and Ker VI 2, Anhang, pp. 566 ff. Diehl Τ 93 was excavated from a grave in the Agora (P 5499; see note 16). Compared with examples which are fully anchored to Geometric, the Melbourne vase has an assured, balanced and advanced form, with a body still ovoid and quite rounded, but noticeably giving the impression of a more generously proportioned cylindrical neck which is both higher and wider, as much as half the height and half the maximum diameter of the body. This greater emphasis on the neck, which tends to equalise rather than differentiate neck and body, and to unify the contours of the two parts, mirrors and probably follows the elongation of the neck-amphora, and looks forward to the slender proportions of the hydrias which are unequivocally Early Protoattic, above all the ‘Classical’ piece, Athens NM 313 (figs 8–9).7 Athens NM 313 from Analatos: Diehl Τ 139; Cook, pls 38b, 39; Davison, fig. 61; good photographs of all sides in Schweitzer, pls 52–55. The elongation of the amphora and hydria at the end of the 8th century and on into Protoattic is discussed by Brann in Agora VIII, pp. 2, 30, 34–35, cf. Coldstream, p. 60. The plastically modelled snakes on the rim, main handle and shoulder are common to this group of vases; while they are first found in Late Geometric llb, as too on neck-amphoras, they are essentially a forward-looking feature. They are not merely ornamental but carry a chthonic significance, confirming the sepulchral function. 8 For the snake in cult of the dead see Hampe, p. 82, with further references. It is worth noting that here the snakes have an air of greater naturalism, with separate heads and tails, rather than stylised into a symbolic continuous undulation.
Turning now to the painted decoration, we can see among the subsidiary designs both standard and unusual characteristics. Most of the non-figurative ornamentation is readily paralleled in comparable vases of the time, with the band of spirals at the base of the neck, and the complex of four diamonds repeated three times in the neck scene, being the most progressive features. However, one has the clear impression that, in contrast to most of the other hydrias, the decoration has been considered with an eye to its composition and deployment over the surface of the vase to achieve a carefully orchestrated harmony and neat balance. The tall neck allows complementary bands above and below the main panel without cramping it. On the body, beneath the snake zone and wider band of diagonal zigzags on the shoulder, three narrow lozenge bands are employed to provide a nice articulation, separating and framing a wide handle zone and a narrower, but still ample, band below. In the handle zone well-proportioned ‘metope’ decoration either side of the handles leaves sizeable panels both front and back, while beneath each handle a grazing deer, front legs and head outstretched, occupies the arched space easily.
Most carefully calculated, and most unusual, are the two balancing bands of grazing deer enclosing the decorative scheme, at the top of the neck and towards the base. No other hydria of the period known to me has an animal frieze in the upper position, and only one other, the key work of Early Protoattic at which we have already glanced (figs 8–9), has such a frieze on the lower part of the body. Most likely this decorative idea has been borrowed from contemporary neck-amphoras where analogous schemes can be found: two have animal friezes in equivalent positions, while on three others they are either on the top of the neck and the shoulder, or (as in fig. 7) on the upper and lower body. Perhaps, however, the closest parallel, both for these friezes and for the tightly organised overall system of decoration, is a large pitcher in the Passas collection where a deer frieze at the lip is balanced by running dogs on the lower body.9 (1) Essen Κ 969: Coldstream, p. 59.19 (Stathatou Painter, Workshop of Athens 894); R. Tölle, AA 1963, pp. 210 ff., figs 1–4; Ahlberg, no. 41 – friezes of lions on top of neck and lower body; (2) Benaki 7675: Coldstream, p. 81.2 (Benaki Painter); Ahlberg, no. 46; Davison, fig. 50; Schweitzer, pl. 46 – friezes of horses on top of neck and lower body; (3) Toronto C 951 = 929.22.10: Coldstream, p. 59.16 (Stathatou Painter); Davison, fig. 119; C. King, AJA 80, 1976, pl. 13, figs 4–5 – friezes of deer on top of neck and shoulder; (4) Baltimore 48.2231 (here Fig. 7), note 3 above – dogs on shoulder, deer on lower body; (5) Stathatou collection: Coldstream, p. 59.15, pl. 11g (Stathatou Painter); Ahlberg, no. 40; Schweitzer, pl. 47; Davison, fig. 115 – deer on shoulder and lower body. The Passas pitcher is Coldstream, p. 59.24 (Workshop of Athens 894), illustrated by Tölle, taf.10. The hydria Villa Giulia 1212 (Diehl Τ 94; R. Bronson, AJA 68, 1964, pp. 174–78, pls 57–58; Coldstream, p. 60, ‘wild Subgeometric’) has a chariot frieze below the handle zone, but as part of a quite different decorative scheme, since it is wider than the latter which, given the high-set handles, is almost on the shoulder. Two other hydrias, Berlin 31045 and the second Vlastos piece (Diehl Τ 96 and 149), have friezes of deer on the shoulder above the handle zone.
It is, however, the main figure zones on the neck and on the body that demand closest attention. Here the transitional character of the vase is most manifest. As for the neck scene, the representation of a funeral is iconographically thoroughly conservative, but in its precise details and manner of depiction it contains features which are exceptional and, indeed, apparently unique. Such representations (arguably stylised reflections of real aristocratic funerals, though perhaps with elements of heroization) had provided Attic Geometric artists with probably their earliest, and certainly for at least fifty years, their central human subject-matter, commencing with the great Dipylon Master’s workshop (of which fig. 5 is a masterpiece). By far the most common scene, exemplified here and on some fifty Late Geometric vases (including figs 5 and 7), is the prothesis, showing the dead lying in state on a bier, surrounded, mourned and tended by family and peers, in the case of male burials normally including warriors.10 Gudrun Ahlberg catalogues, illustrates and analyses all the extant examples at time of publication. In the much less frequent scene of the ekphora, surviving in only three sure Geometric examples also treated by Ahlberg, the bier is placed on a funerary wagon for transport to the cemetery. The Melbourne vase is one of the latest to illustrate a version of the standard Geometric iconographic scheme (detail fig. 4),11 Although prothesis scenes never died out in later vase painting, the latest to reproduce the Geometric scheme may be on fragments of a neck-amphora in the Vlastos collection (Ahlberg, no. 44; C. King, AJA 80, 1976, pp. 80–81; pl. 14, figs 7-8, pl. 15, fig. 9). with the dead flanked by females, hands to head in the customary gesture of mourning, four to one side and five to the other; three more are depicted kneeling as though under the bier, but perhaps, given the conceptual artist’s avoidance or ignorance of representation in depth and his normal desire not to obscure by overlapping, in reality in front of it.12 See Ahlberg, pp. 273–74.
However, the placement of the prothesis scene on the neck of a hydria appears to be unparalleled. Canonically the first generation of Late Geometric artists had painted it on the monumental grave-markers, on either kraters or the bodies of belly-handled amphoras (as on fig. 5, see detail fig. 6), probably for male and female burials respectively; then in Late Geometric II, when such monumental vases had gone out of fashion, it seems that male protheses were painted on neck-amphoras, with a special preference for their necks, particularly in the workshop which continued the ‘classical tradition’ of the Dipylon Master, the Workshop of Athens 894.13 As many as eight neck-amphoras of this workshop have protheses on the neck: Ahlberg, nos 36–43; Coldstream, pp. 58–59.6–7, 10–11, 15, 21, 23. Other prothesis scenes similarly placed in LG llb are Ahlberg, no. 46; Coldstream, p. 81.2 (Benaki Painter); and probably Ahlberg, no. 35; Coldstream, p. 57.6 (Philadelphia Painter); Tölle, pls 11–12; they may have been preceded by Ahlberg, no. 31, if that is LG lla. By contrast only two LG llb neck-amphoras have their prothesis on the body: Ahlberg, no 33, Davison, fig. lll; Coldstream, p. 55.11 (Sub-Dipylon Group) and Ahlberg no. 48; Coldstream, p. 82.2 (Painter of Paris CA 3283). Presumably the painter of the present hydria was influenced by this since, as we shall see, he was almost certainly a member of that workshop. Further, it would not be surprising if, towards the end of the Geometric tradition, scenes were painted in uncanonical positions; and, in fact, there are in Late Geometric llb two or three instances of prothesis depicted on pitchers, and even one on an oinochoe.14 Pitchers: Ahlberg, no. 34; Coldstream, p. 72.10 (Rattle Group), and Ahlberg no. 45; Davison, fig. 29, Coldstream, p.78.26 (Workshop of Athens 897), the peculiar case of a quadruple prothesis. Oinochoe Ahlberg, no. 47; Coldstream, p. 82.1, pl. 14d (Painter of Paris CA 3283). The strange Dresden pitcher, Ahlberg, no. 23, would be an LG lb example of a pitcher prothesis if Coldstream’s suggested attribution (p. 43, n. 2) is correct. In fact, what might be thought extraordinary, or at least curious, is that given the already mentioned close association of the hydria in one of its major uses with funerary rites, there are so few scenes painted on them which unambiguously represent these rites. Not only is this the only Geometric hydria with a prothesis, there may be only two others in all subsequent vase painting.15 One of them is the impressive Late Corinthian I hydria of 575–50 B.C. with the moving mythological representation of the prothesis of Achilles, Diehl Τ 195, pl. 33.2 (Louvre Ε 643). I have not seen the red-figure hydria in Laval University, Quebec, referred to as having a prothesis on the shoulder by Kurtz & Boardman, p. 359 (the other vases mentioned in the reference in that place do not have prothesis scenes). Otherwise, only three Attic hydrias of this period have undoubted funerary associations, by depicting a file of women who are specifically mourning.16 Diehl Τ 93 = Agora Ρ 5499; R S Young, Hesperia, Supplement II, 1939, p. 49, fig. 34; Coldstream, p. 59.29; at least six mourning women in handle zone. Brauron, R. Tölle, Raggi 7, 1, 1967, abb.10; Coldstream, p. 67 12 (Birdseed Painter), at least six mourning women on neck. Diehl Τ 138 = Würzburg 80, E. Langlotz, Griechische Vasen in Würzburg, 1932, tat. 7, seven women on neck, with one hand to head. An early 7th-century Cretan hydria also has three mourning women (Diehl Τ 133). Admittedly there would be many more if the opinion of a number of scholars is accepted that there is funerary significance in all the so-called ‘Reigentänzer’, the files of figures, usually women, carrying branches and with hands linked in procession or dance, which are found on the necks of over half (twenty by my count) of the other Late Geometric-Early Protoattic hydrias (for example, fig. 9), as on many other contemporary vases; but in my opinion this remains to be clearly demonstrated.17 See especially Ahlberg, pp. 175 ff., and generally Tölle. Despite the explicit statement by Kurtz & Boardman, p. 60, I know of no example of such a ‘chain dance’ associated with a prothesis scene; if there is a prothesis the figures have at least one hand to the head in mourning and do not hold hands. On the other hand, I am prepared to believe that festive, choral dances may originally have had a connection with funerary ceremonies.
The detailed rendering of the prothesis offers a number of peculiarities. In the first place, the complete wrapping of the corpse in a shroud is unexpected at this time, since the conceptual artist would normally paint the body unobscured by the shroud, which would be shown apparently suspended above it (as in figs 6 and 7); the exceptional representation on this vase is found on only one other Geometric prothesis,18 Athens NM 812; Ahlberg, no. 18; Coldstream, p. 46, proposing an LG la date. Even more surprisingly, the representation appears to be unique, in that the dead is depicted lying with his head at the left, facing right, whereas in every other prothesis known to me (not only the fifty or so of this period, but all other later examples) the dead is shown lying in the other direction, with his head at the right. It is difficult to suggest why this should be the case, but it seems beyond the realm of coincidence if a matter of free artistic choice;19 Two possible reasons have been proposed. (1) The body was painted facing left in accordance with the belief that the abode of the dead was in the west. So I. Scheibler, Die Archaische Nekropole, DAI Kerameikos Heft 3, 1973, p. 7: ‘In der archaischen Bildsprache bedeutet dies eine Ausrightung der Kline nach links, die Einzugseite im Bild. Vielleicht deutet die stereotype Linksausrichtung der Prothesisbilder auch darauf hin, dass der Tote in das im Westen gedachte Totenland schauen soll.’ But is it plausible to interpret direction on a moveable object like a vase as orientation to a particular point of the compass? In fact, although according to the well-known story, reported in Plutarch, Solon 10, the Athenians claimed they buried their dead facing west, this was by no means the regular practice; some burials seem to have been deliberately thus orientated, but there are many which were not (see further Kurtz & Boardman, pp. 54–56, 71, 194–95, 331, for lack of any uniform pattern of orientation). (2) As also suggested by Scheibler, in accordance with a normal Greek practice of painting a scene so that it ‘moves’ or develops from left to right, as for example a procession, it was natural to paint the dead facing left to ‘receive’ the mourners. (However, it seems hardly correct for Kurtz & Boardman to say (p 144) that the dead faces left ‘presumably towards the door, since it is from this direction that the men come in procession’ [my italics]) This explanation, besides being more likely in itself, would impose on the artist only an artistic convention, not an almost religious prescription, which it is difficult to imagine being disobeyed. Compare the habitual practice of painting a figure reclining on a bed or couch with the head at the right. The nearest parallel I have been able to find to the orientation of the body on this vase is a corpse with head at the left being carried leftwards by pallbearers on a late Attic black-figure kantharos – Paris Cab. Méd. 355, Beazley ABV, 364.8, CVA, pl. 71.2, 4, 6; 73.1–3; Kurtz & Boardman, pl 35; J. Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases, London, 1974, fig. 220. at any rate it remains a most remarkable, and rather disturbing, empirical fact that the present representation is the sole exception to a rule which is otherwise, so far as I am aware, universal. Thirdly, this direction of the dead then means that the three mourners painted to the right under the bier are facing the deceased’s feet. In itself this is not unique, since it can be paralleled in at least two other examples (apart from those where such mourners face each other symmetrically);20 Athens NM 812. Ahlberg, no. 18; and Dresden ZV 1635; Ahlberg, no 23; where of course, with the head of the dead at the right, the mourners under the bier face left. but a strange effect is created when it is combined with a further unique detail, the way these figures are not erect, as for example in figs 6 and 7, but bend forwards, to our eyes a sign of emotional mourning or homage which looks as though it should be directed towards the head. These points do not exhaust the list of surprises,21 Further unusual details which might be noted are: (1) the comparatively large undecorated rectangular area between the two horizontal lines drawn from one bier end to the other. Whatever the perspectival interpretation, that is, whether the lower line is meant to represent the lower or the further edge of the bier (see, for example, Ahlberg, pp. 47–48, 53–54), I believe every other comparable depiction has the space filled with ornament (as on figs 6 and 7), as indeed one would expect from the amount of filling decoration in the rest of this scene; (2) The two female mourners under the bier who have only one hand to the head would normally raise the other hand (cf. Ahlberg, p. 327, sketch 3). but are enough to show that, for all its seeming conventionality, this is one of the strangest representations of a prothesis to survive.
Finally the lions, two pairs in the handle zone panels front and back.22 Part of the back panel is lost, but is probably to be restored with a second lion as at the front.These beasts begin to proliferate quite suddenly in the last phase of Geometric vase painting, as too on the contemporaneous gold bands found in graves. Whether or not real lions existed in Greece at this time, it is most improbable that an artist ever encountered one face to face; they are, in Carter’s term, ‘art lions’ and provide one of the surest signs of the influence of Eastern art.23 J. Carter, BSA 67, 1972, pp 40–45, esp. p.43; cf. Brann in Agora VIII, pp 18–19. There is an exhaustive discussion of lions in the 8th-7th centuries in Ker VI 2, pp. 69–88. Although, like the sphinx, they may have carried specific connotations of death,24 For the interpretation of the sphinx as a ker, a harbinger of death, see Hampe, pp. 84–85. it is probably safer to think of them, in the first instance, as representing to the Greeks more generalised ‘terror symbols’, expressions of natural power and ferocity; but also, like the gorgon, so long as they retained meaning they could be tamed, so to speak, turned to one’s advantage as guardians, apotropaic signs. As symbols they naturally stand heraldically posed, sufficient unto themselves, their potential savagery adequately, though naively, conveyed by gaping jaws and sharp pronged claws. Occasionally they display their violence in action by attacking another animal, as they do in the famous Homeric similes; on the Melbourne vase there may be a hint of this activity in the peculiar (and unparalleled) hatched, crescent-shaped object, apparently held in a front paw by one lion, which could conceivably be a last morsel of prey rather than a filling ornament.25 This would be most unusual, since the conceptual artist, consistent with his desire to show a figure at its most characteristic or fullest extent (like the corpse on a bier) would normally depict the whole prey before being mauled, or at least enough of it to be recognisable. In the category of prey already being devoured are: one leg of the ‘tripod’ stand, Ker. 407, Ker V 1, taf. 69 (LG II). lower half of prey (animal rather than human?) dangling from lion’s mouth; oinochoai Agora VIII, no. 427, fig 5 (Early Protoattic Oxford Painter), and Ker. 81, Ker VI 2, taf. 1 (Early Protoattic). mauled prey in lion’s mouth. In the last two cases the species of prey is hardly distinguishable, but still vastly more recognisable as animal than on the Melbourne vase. Of course the lions and the files of defenceless creatures above and below are oblivious of each other, and no thematic connection is to be imagined. Of the four Late Geometric scenes depicting close encounters between lion and human, only one shows mauling a man in the grip of lions front and rear, his head already bitten off but otherwise whole, on the kantharos Copenhagen NM 727: Davison, fig. 128; Schweitzer, pl. 69; Arias-Hirmer, pl. 8; Coldstream, p. 72, n. 2 (LG lla?). On the other hand, it is typically Greek for an original meaningful symbol to ‘fade’ into a decorative motif; this also occurred with lions from an early stage, as when they simply file along in repetitive friezes,26 So on the amphora in Essen (see note 9, above), and that in Copenhagen, NM 9378, Coldstream, p. 59.22 (workshop of Athens 894), with lions among a frieze of horses. The same is true of the Lion Painter’s beasts, whether in friezes or panels (Coldstream, pp. 73–74). and it may well be prudent to regard the present specimens as no more than this.
The lions are also important indicators of the stylistic relationships of the Melbourne vase. The first lions to display a concern for naturalism appear when Early Protoattic is well under way, perhaps in the second decade of the 7th century, and due at least in part to the painter we know as the Analatos Painter, the leader, if not the initiator, of the Protoattic style. Good examples of developed felines date from his full maturity, as the splendidly rubbery creatures on his Munich krater and those on the bowl from Thebes (which I believe to be his), as well as related examples found in the Agora.27 Krater Munich 6077: Cook, pl. 41, CVA, Munich 3, tat. 130, Hampe, abb. 17; bowl, Athens NM 238 from Thebes: Cook, pl. 42b; Agora VIII, nos 400, 401, pls 23, 43. The Melbourne lions are a more primitive breed, reminiscent rather of the first, Geometric, specimens, distinguished not by realistic detail but by stylised lionness, being ‘simply a number of lion-indices collected in a silhouette’.28 Brann, in Agora VIII, p. 18. Close relatives include that on a fragmentary cauldron in Athens, the heraldic pairs on a hydria in Cambridge, in files on amphoras in Essen, Copenhagen and Paris, and on fragments of bowls from the Agora.29 Fragmentary cauldron, Athens NM ‘811’: AM 17, 1892, p. 226, fig.10; Hampe, abb. 39; Tölle, Beil. 1 (reconstruction perhaps wrongly joining with Athens NM 810); Coldstream, p. 60.40 (workshop of Athens 894); hydria, Cambridge CAM 345: Tölle, taf. 18; Coldstream, p. 59.31 (workshop of Athens 894); amphora, Essen: see note 9, above; amphora, Copenhagen: see note 26, above; amphora, Louvre CA 3468: F. Villard, Mon Piot 49, 1957, pp. 17 ff., figs 1–12; CVA, Louvre 16, pls 40–41; Ch. Zervos, La civilisation hellénique, t.1, Paris 1969, pl. 113; Coldstream, p. 58.13 (workshop of Athens 894); cf. skyphos Würzburg L 58, B. Borell, Attisch geometrische Schalen, Heidelberger . . . Keramikforschungen II, Mainz, 1978, no. 93, taf. 22; Coldstream, p. 60.47 (workshop of Athens 894); and Agora VIII, nos 374 and 375, pl. 22. Nearly all these have been attributed to the so-called Painter of Athens 894 or his associates, the premier workshop of the last phase of Geometric, Late Geometric llb. It has been proposed that they are ancestors of the heraldic pair on the hydria which is the Analatos Painter’s name vase and marks his first maturity (fig. 8).30 See note 7, above. With their strange curling retroussé jaws and wire-brush claws, the Melbourne beasts now neatly supply the ‘missing link’ between the workshop of Athens 894 specimens and those on the Analatos vase. This lion pedigree is confirmation that, as proposed by Cook and accepted by Davison and Coldstream, the Analatos Painter was trained in the workshop of Athens 894, and suggests that the present vase was a step in that process.31 The lions of the early work of the Mesogeia Painter, lesser contemporary and presumably rival of the Analatos Painter, are not radically different, and suggest also his training in the workshop of Athens 894; see the hydria Berlin 31312: Cook, pl. 43; Davison, fig. 64; CVA, Berlin 1, taf. 40, 41.2. His later ones become more wayward. I am not sure of the stylistic connections of the lions in the neck panels of the amphora, Würzburg Η 4988: CVA, Würzburg 1, taf. 16, and abb. 1–2, but the vase is possibly Mesogeian.
Other stylistic details point in the same direction. The mourning females are clearly sisters, or at least cousins, to those on the vases of the workshop of Athens 894 (e.g. fig. 7),32 See especially, besides the Baltimore vase, fig. 7, note 9 above, the amphora, Cleveland 1927.27.6: Davison, fig. 34; Ahlberg, no. 36; Coldstream, p. 58.6, in both of which are clearly seen the similar tendency to angular hip and trailing skirt, ending in a neat point on the groundline. but just as clearly aunts of the more modern chorus on the Analatos hydria. Heads, with reserved circular eye and pointed nose and jaw joined by a concave line, are even more Analattan, far less prognathous than in the workshop of Athens 894.33 Particularly close to the head of the corpse is that of the charioteer on the fragment Agora VIII, no. 386, pl. 23. Compare, too, the heads on Oxford 1936.599: Davison, fig. 60; Cook, p. 172; Coldstream, p. 63, which I am inclined to agree is apprentice work by the Analatos Painter; and also on Oxford 1935.19: Davison, fig. 59; Cook, p. 169, pl. 38a, which, however, with Coldstream, p. 64, note 6, contra Davison, pp. 51–52, may be Mesogeian. I thank Dr Michael Vickers of the Ashmolean Museum for permission to study both of these. Again the deer, long-legged and with slender necks reaching down almost vertically, are similar to those of the same Late Geometric workshop, and particularly those painted by a distinctive member of it, the Stathatou Painter;34 See especially the amphoras in the Stathatou collection and Toronto, note 9, above. The deer under the handles with outstretched front legs and neck are less easy to parallel; in pose, though not in style, the nearest analogy seems the Geroulanos hydria, AJA 63, 1959, pl. 45. but their identical twins are to be found grazing on vases by the Analatos Painter, in the lower frieze of his name piece (figs 8–9) and on a standed bowl in Eleusis.35 Eleusis 1089, Cook, pl. 40a, cf. the deer on the standed bowl Kerameikos 301: Ker V 1, taf. 126; Davison, fig. 62. An unusual touch on the Melbourne vase is on the neck frieze at the back, where a fawn is found (see fig. 3), probably because the artist did not leave space for an adult; although I know no other exactly the same, parallels can be found in the inclusion of a colt at the end of a row of horses on the Stathatou Painter’s Toronto amphora (note 9, above) and the Analatos Painter’s British Museum lid: Cook, pl. 42a (also on Würzburg Η 4988, note 31, above; CVA 1, abb. 3; and on the hydria, Mainz University 47, note 6, above). For these and other reasons one is almost irresistibly led to the conclusion that the Melbourne vase is to be attributed to the Analatos Painter, painted at the outset of his career when he was serving his apprenticeship in the workshop of the Painter of Athens 894; indeed, it is tempting to suggest that it is the earliest piece of his yet known, still Late Geometric in nearly every respect but already showing tell-tale marks of his hand.36 Coldstream, pp. 63–64, places the young Analatos Painter’s apprenticeship under the Stathatou Painter; one detail at least on our vase argues against this, the vertical strands of hair standing erect from the females’ heads, a trait otherwise found in the work of the Painter of Athens 894 (e.g. fig. 7) but not, I think, of the Stathatou Painter.
The main outlines of the Analatos Painter’s artistic personality have been clear since J. M. Cook magisterially delineated it, as well as his leading role in the transition from Geometric and formation of Protoattic.37 See Cook, pp. 172–76; Cook, BSA 42, 1947, pp. 142–43; cf. JHS 81, 1961, p. 221. There are perceptive comments on the Analatos Painter’s style, as well as on relative chronology, in C. Brokaw, AM 78, 1963, pp. 63–73. Also Brann, in Agora VIII, p. 19 (an excellent sketch); EAA I, 1958, pp. 338–40 (L. Banti); Hampe, pp. 77–78. Brann calls him ‘a Geometric painter with advantages’.38 This and the next quotation are from Brann, Agora VIII, p. 19. These advantages were two-fold. In the first place, whereas his older companions in the shop in which he grew up produced ‘oddly powerful little puppets set in an atmosphere thick with fill ornament’, he developed a steady but delicate, even fastidious, hand with an appreciation of the advantage of controlled line to achieve elegant, taut contours, and an eye for organised composition; these lessons, perhaps learnt from the tidier Stathatou Painter in particular, he never forgot, and so kept his head when other Late Geometric artists were losing theirs. The Melbourne vase provides early evidence of this refinement and restraint. But secondly, though these qualities had tendencies to affectation or archaism, as perhaps shown on the Louvre amphora which is the masterpiece of his full maturity,39 Brann, in Agora VIII, p. 19, calls the Analatos Painter ‘a Geometric mannerist in part’; cf. AJA 63, 1959, p. 179. On Louvre CA 2985, Arias-Hirmer, pl. II, where Brokaw, p. 72, finds a ‘pedantry’ and almost stifling richess, our painter in reality attempts to achieve a stately monumentality, a revised classicism, utilising the new manner but not letting it go to his head – he was not an expressive artist. his style did not fossilise: no revolutionary, he was yet a real innovator, cautiously but surely moving towards a new style; in a sense, by preserving high standards of draughtsmanship while pioneering Protoattic, he was the saviour of Athenian vase painting. The Melbourne vase, as we have seen, displays a number of unusual and even unique experiments, largely in iconography;40 The Stathatou Painter could paint animal friezes and even chariots which proceed from right to left against the normal flow, as on his name vase and the Toronto and Essen amphoras (see note 9, above); but to reverse the orientation of a corpse in a prothesis, where one might expect a sanctioned scheme, seems to me a surprising experiment of a quite different order. but, if by his hand, it shows him still working within the Late Geometric idiom, with as yet little evidence of the Protoattic manner he was to evolve. Stylistically Geometric but potentially Protoattic, it is truly transitional, on the border between the two.41 There is no sign of the Orientalising plant motifs, for instance, which are in full flower by the time of fig, 8; on the Melbourne vase all the decorative ornaments are characteristic Late Geometric, except for the diamond complexes in the neck panel.
Ronald G. Hood, John Elliott Classics Museum, University of Tasmania (in 1982).
Notes
Abbreviations of works cited in this article:
AA Archäologischer Anzeiger.
Agora VIII E. Brann, The Athenian Agora, vol VIII: Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery, Princeton, 1962.
Ahlberg G. Ahlberg, Prothesis and Ekphora in Greek Geometric Art. Göteborg, 1971.
AJA American Journal of Archaeology.
AM Athenische Mitteilungen.
Arias-Hirmer P. E. Arias and M. Hirmer, A History of Greek Vase Painting, Eng trans, with notes by Β. Β. Shefton London, 1962.
BSA Annual of the British School at Athens.
Coldstream J. N. Coldstream, Greek Geometric Pottery, London, 1968.
Cook J M. Cook, ‘Protoattic Pottery’, Annual of the British School at Athens XXXV, 1934–35, pp. 165–219.
CVA Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum.
Davison J. M. Davison, ‘Attic Geometric Workshops’, Yale Classical Studies XVI, 1961
Diehl E. Diehl, Die Hydria, Mainz, 1964.
EAA Enciclopedia dell’Arte Antica.
Hampe R. Hampe, Ein frühattischer Grabfund, Mainz, 1960.
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies.
Ker VI K. Kübler, Kerameikos: Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen: Die Nekropole des 10 bis 8 Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1954.
Ker VI 2 K. Kübler, Kerameikos: Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen: Die Nekropole des späten 8 bis frühen 6 Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1970.
Kurtz & Boardman D. C. Kurtz and J. Boardman, Greek Burial Customs, London, 1971.
Mon Piot Monuments et Mémoires, Fondation Eugène Piot.
Schweitzer B. Schweitzer, Greek Geometric Art, Eng. trans., London, 1971.
Tölle R. Tölle, Frühgriechische Reigentänze, Waldassen, 1964.
1 Accession no. D23/1982 Felton Bequest 1982 Ht 45.5 cm maximum diameter of body 23.6 cm Ht of neck 15.5 cm diameter of neck 11.3 cm. The vase has been restored from numerous fragments, the main areas missing being at the back between the handles, below the right handle, and parts of the lower bands. The clay is a warm, fawn buff colour, the paint has fired a rich brown, almost chocolate colour. The plastic snakes are painted, and there are three painted lines inside the mouth. There has possibly been some retouching, particularly the darker streaks on the lions but, if so, without any falsification of the original design.
2 Coldstream, p. 29.1, pl. 6 (Dipylon Master, LG la); Ahlberg, no. 2; Arias-Hirmer, pl. 4; Davison, fig. 1; Schweitzer, pls 30–31.
3 Baltimore, 48.2231; Coldstream, p. 58.7 (Painter of Athens 894, LG llb); Ahlberg, no. 37; Davison, fig. 35.
4 Coldstream, p. 60; Brann, in Agora VIII, pp. 34–35.
5 Erika Diehl, in her authoritative work on the hydria, properly emphasises the funerary functions and connotations of the shape, dealing fully with its use in graves (pp. 67–128), in cult of the dead (pp. 128–46), and as an ash container (pp. 146–68). Briefly, see Kurtz & Boardman, pp. 149–61 and 209–10, with references on pp. 359, 363; their pl. 21 illustrates an elaborate set of vase offerings, including a hydria, found in a 5th-century grave in the Kerameikos.
6 This is not the place to discuss in detail these hydrias, which deserve treatment in their own right. Briefly, I accept the following: LG llb, 12 examples: Diehl Τ 86, 91, 92, 90, 93 (= Coldstream, p. 59.25–29); Coldstream, p. 59.30–32; Diehl Τ 88 (= Coldstream, p. 59.33); Coldstream, p. 67.12; Diehl Τ 83 (= Coldstream, p. 78.28); Τ 84; EPA, 23 examples, though including some on the border with Geometric and others classifiable as Sub-geometric: Diehl Τ 87, 89, 94–96, 136–50 (but 147 is probably Middle Protoattic) with the addition of Melbourne, Liverpool City Museum (known to me only from On View 3, 1968/69, p. 41 with illus.) and Mainz University 47 (CVA, Mainz 1, tat. 6). Other, incomplete lists, can be found in G. Bakalakis, AM 76, 1961, pp. 60–66, and Ker VI 2, Anhang, pp. 566 ff. Diehl Τ 93 was excavated from a grave in the Agora (P 5499; see note 16).
7 Athens NM 313 from Analatos: Diehl Τ 139; Cook, pls 38b, 39; Davison, fig. 61; good photographs of all sides in Schweitzer, pls 52–55. The elongation of the amphora and hydria at the end of the 8th century and on into Protoattic is discussed by Brann in Agora VIII, pp. 2, 30, 34–35, cf. Coldstream, p. 60.
8 For the snake in cult of the dead see Hampe, p. 82, with further references.
9 (1) Essen Κ 969: Coldstream, p. 59.19 (Stathatou Painter, Workshop of Athens 894); R. Tölle, AA 1963, pp. 210 ff., figs 1–4; Ahlberg, no. 41 – friezes of lions on top of neck and lower body; (2) Benaki 7675: Coldstream, p. 81.2 (Benaki Painter); Ahlberg, no. 46; Davison, fig. 50; Schweitzer, pl. 46 – friezes of horses on top of neck and lower body; (3) Toronto C 951 = 929.22.10: Coldstream, p. 59.16 (Stathatou Painter); Davison, fig. 119; C. King, AJA 80, 1976, pl. 13, figs 4–5 – friezes of deer on top of neck and shoulder; (4) Baltimore 48.2231 (here Fig. 7), note 3 above – dogs on shoulder, deer on lower body; (5) Stathatou collection: Coldstream, p. 59.15, pl. 11g (Stathatou Painter); Ahlberg, no. 40; Schweitzer, pl. 47; Davison, fig. 115 – deer on shoulder and lower body. The Passas pitcher is Coldstream, p. 59.24 (Workshop of Athens 894), illustrated by Tölle, taf.10. The hydria Villa Giulia 1212 (Diehl Τ 94; R. Bronson, AJA 68, 1964, pp. 174–78, pls 57–58; Coldstream, p. 60, ‘wild Subgeometric’) has a chariot frieze below the handle zone, but as part of a quite different decorative scheme, since it is wider than the latter which, given the high-set handles, is almost on the shoulder. Two other hydrias, Berlin 31045 and the second Vlastos piece (Diehl Τ 96 and 149), have friezes of deer on the shoulder above the handle zone.
10 Gudrun Ahlberg catalogues, illustrates and analyses all the extant examples at time of publication. In the much less frequent scene of the ekphora, surviving in only three sure Geometric examples also treated by Ahlberg, the bier is placed on a funerary wagon for transport to the cemetery.
11 Although prothesis scenes never died out in later vase painting, the latest to reproduce the Geometric scheme may be on fragments of a neck-amphora in the Vlastos collection (Ahlberg, no. 44; C. King, AJA 80, 1976, pp. 80–81; pl. 14, figs 7-8, pl. 15, fig. 9).
12 See Ahlberg, pp. 273–74.
13 As many as eight neck-amphoras of this workshop have protheses on the neck: Ahlberg, nos 36–43; Coldstream, pp. 58–59.6–7, 10–11, 15, 21, 23. Other prothesis scenes similarly placed in LG llb are Ahlberg, no. 46; Coldstream, p. 81.2 (Benaki Painter); and probably Ahlberg, no. 35; Coldstream, p. 57.6 (Philadelphia Painter); Tölle, pls 11–12; they may have been preceded by Ahlberg, no. 31, if that is LG lla. By contrast only two LG llb neck-amphoras have their prothesis on the body: Ahlberg, no 33, Davison, fig. lll; Coldstream, p. 55.11 (Sub-Dipylon Group) and Ahlberg no. 48; Coldstream, p. 82.2 (Painter of Paris CA 3283).
14 Pitchers: Ahlberg, no. 34; Coldstream, p. 72.10 (Rattle Group), and Ahlberg no. 45; Davison, fig. 29, Coldstream, p.78.26 (Workshop of Athens 897), the peculiar case of a quadruple prothesis. Oinochoe Ahlberg, no. 47; Coldstream, p. 82.1, pl. 14d (Painter of Paris CA 3283). The strange Dresden pitcher, Ahlberg, no. 23, would be an LG lb example of a pitcher prothesis if Coldstream’s suggested attribution (p. 43, n. 2) is correct.
15 One of them is the impressive Late Corinthian I hydria of 575–50 B.C. with the moving mythological representation of the prothesis of Achilles, Diehl Τ 195, pl. 33.2 (Louvre Ε 643). I have not seen the red-figure hydria in Laval University, Quebec, referred to as having a prothesis on the shoulder by Kurtz & Boardman, p. 359 (the other vases mentioned in the reference in that place do not have prothesis scenes).
16 Diehl Τ 93 = Agora Ρ 5499; R S Young, Hesperia, Supplement II, 1939, p. 49, fig. 34; Coldstream, p. 59.29; at least six mourning women in handle zone. Brauron, R. Tölle, Raggi 7, 1, 1967, abb.10; Coldstream, p. 67 12 (Birdseed Painter), at least six mourning women on neck. Diehl Τ 138 = Würzburg 80, E. Langlotz, Griechische Vasen in Würzburg, 1932, tat. 7, seven women on neck, with one hand to head. An early 7th-century Cretan hydria also has three mourning women (Diehl Τ 133).
17 See especially Ahlberg, pp. 175 ff., and generally Tölle. Despite the explicit statement by Kurtz & Boardman, p. 60, I know of no example of such a ‘chain dance’ associated with a prothesis scene; if there is a prothesis the figures have at least one hand to the head in mourning and do not hold hands. On the other hand, I am prepared to believe that festive, choral dances may originally have had a connection with funerary ceremonies.
18 Athens NM 812; Ahlberg, no. 18; Coldstream, p. 46, proposing an LG la date.
19 Two possible reasons have been proposed. (1) The body was painted facing left in accordance with the belief that the abode of the dead was in the west. So I. Scheibler, Die Archaische Nekropole, DAI Kerameikos Heft 3, 1973, p. 7: ‘In der archaischen Bildsprache bedeutet dies eine Ausrightung der Kline nach links, die Einzugseite im Bild. Vielleicht deutet die stereotype Linksausrichtung der Prothesisbilder auch darauf hin, dass der Tote in das im Westen gedachte Totenland schauen soll.’ But is it plausible to interpret direction on a moveable object like a vase as orientation to a particular point of the compass? In fact, although according to the well-known story, reported in Plutarch, Solon 10, the Athenians claimed they buried their dead facing west, this was by no means the regular practice; some burials seem to have been deliberately thus orientated, but there are many which were not (see further Kurtz & Boardman, pp. 54–56, 71, 194–95, 331, for lack of any uniform pattern of orientation). (2) As also suggested by Scheibler, in accordance with a normal Greek practice of painting a scene so that it ‘moves’ or develops from left to right, as for example a procession, it was natural to paint the dead facing left to ‘receive’ the mourners. (However, it seems hardly correct for Kurtz & Boardman to say (p 144) that the dead faces left ‘presumably towards the door, since it is from this direction that the men come in procession’ [my italics]) This explanation, besides being more likely in itself, would impose on the artist only an artistic convention, not an almost religious prescription, which it is difficult to imagine being disobeyed. Compare the habitual practice of painting a figure reclining on a bed or couch with the head at the right. The nearest parallel I have been able to find to the orientation of the body on this vase is a corpse with head at the left being carried leftwards by pallbearers on a late Attic black-figure kantharos – Paris Cab. Méd. 355, Beazley ABV, 364.8, CVA, pl. 71.2, 4, 6; 73.1–3; Kurtz & Boardman, pl 35; J. Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases, London, 1974, fig. 220.
20 Athens NM 812. Ahlberg, no. 18; and Dresden ZV 1635; Ahlberg, no 23; where of course, with the head of the dead at the right, the mourners under the bier face left.
21 Further unusual details which might be noted are: (1) the comparatively large undecorated rectangular area between the two horizontal lines drawn from one bier end to the other. Whatever the perspectival interpretation, that is, whether the lower line is meant to represent the lower or the further edge of the bier (see, for example, Ahlberg, pp. 47–48, 53–54), I believe every other comparable depiction has the space filled with ornament (as on Figs 6 and 7), as indeed one would expect from the amount of filling decoration in the rest of this scene; (2) The two female mourners under the bier who have only one hand to the head would normally raise the other hand (cf. Ahlberg, p. 327, sketch 3).
22 Part of the back panel is lost, but is probably to be restored with a second lion as at the front.
23 J. Carter, BSA 67, 1972, pp 40–45, esp. p.43; cf. Brann in Agora VIII, pp 18–19. There is an exhaustive discussion of lions in the 8th-7th centuries in Ker VI 2, pp. 69–88.
24 For the interpretation of the sphinx as a ker, a harbinger of death, see Hampe, pp. 84–85.
25 This would be most unusual, since the conceptual artist, consistent with his desire to show a figure at its most characteristic or fullest extent (like the corpse on a bier) would normally depict the whole prey before being mauled, or at least enough of it to be recognisable. In the category of prey already being devoured are: one leg of the ‘tripod’ stand, Ker. 407, Ker V 1, taf. 69 (LG II). lower half of prey (animal rather than human?) dangling from lion’s mouth; oinochoai Agora VIII, no. 427, fig 5 (Early Protoattic Oxford Painter), and Ker. 81, Ker VI 2, taf. 1 (Early Protoattic). mauled prey in lion’s mouth. In the last two cases the species of prey is hardly distinguishable, but still vastly more recognisable as animal than on the Melbourne vase. Of course the lions and the files of defenceless creatures above and below are oblivious of each other, and no thematic connection is to be imagined. Of the four Late Geometric scenes depicting close encounters between lion and human, only one shows mauling a man in the grip of lions front and rear, his head already bitten off but otherwise whole, on the kantharos Copenhagen NM 727: Davison, fig. 128; Schweitzer, pl. 69; Arias-Hirmer, pl. 8; Coldstream, p. 72, n. 2 (LG lla?).
26 So on the amphora in Essen (see note 9, above), and that in Copenhagen, NM 9378, Coldstream, p. 59.22 (workshop of Athens 894), with lions among a frieze of horses. The same is true of the Lion Painter’s beasts, whether in friezes or panels (Coldstream, pp. 73–74).
27 Krater Munich 6077: Cook, pl. 41, CVA, Munich 3, tat. 130, Hampe, abb. 17; bowl, Athens NM 238 from Thebes: Cook, pl. 42b; Agora VIII, nos 400, 401, pls 23, 43.
28 Brann, in Agora VIII, p. 18.
29 Fragmentary cauldron, Athens NM ‘811’: AM 17, 1892, p. 226, fig.10; Hampe, abb. 39; Tölle, Beil. 1 (reconstruction perhaps wrongly joining with Athens NM 810); Coldstream, p. 60.40 (workshop of Athens 894); hydria, Cambridge CAM 345: Tölle, taf. 18; Coldstream, p. 59.31 (workshop of Athens 894); amphora, Essen: see note 9, above; amphora, Copenhagen: see note 26, above; amphora, Louvre CA 3468: F. Villard, Mon Piot 49, 1957, pp. 17 ff., figs 1–12; CVA, Louvre 16, pls 40–41; Ch. Zervos, La civilisation hellénique, t.1, Paris 1969, pl. 113; Coldstream, p. 58.13 (workshop of Athens 894); cf. skyphos Würzburg L 58, B. Borell, Attisch geometrische Schalen, Heidelberger . . . Keramikforschungen II, Mainz, 1978, no. 93, taf. 22; Coldstream, p. 60.47 (workshop of Athens 894); and Agora VIII, nos 374 and 375, pl. 22.
30 See note 7, above.
31 The lions of the early work of the Mesogeia Painter, lesser contemporary and presumably rival of the Analatos Painter, are not radically different, and suggest also his training in the workshop of Athens 894; see the hydria Berlin 31312: Cook, pl. 43; Davison, fig. 64; CVA, Berlin 1, taf. 40, 41.2. His later ones become more wayward. I am not sure of the stylistic connections of the lions in the neck panels of the amphora, Würzburg Η 4988: CVA, Würzburg 1, taf. 16, and abb. 1–2, but the vase is possibly Mesogeian.
32 See especially, besides the Baltimore vase, Fig. 7, note 9 above, the amphora, Cleveland 1927.27.6: Davison, fig. 34; Ahlberg, no. 36; Coldstream, p. 58.6, in both of which are clearly seen the similar tendency to angular hip and trailing skirt, ending in a neat point on the groundline.
33 Particularly close to the head of the corpse is that of the charioteer on the fragment Agora VIII, no. 386, pl. 23. Compare, too, the heads on Oxford 1936.599: Davison, fig. 60; Cook, p. 172; Coldstream, p. 63, which I am inclined to agree is apprentice work by the Analatos Painter; and also on Oxford 1935.19: Davison, fig. 59; Cook, p. 169, pl. 38a, which, however, with Coldstream, p. 64, note 6, contra Davison, pp. 51–52, may be Mesogeian. I thank Dr Michael Vickers of the Ashmolean Museum for permission to study both of these.
34 See especially the amphoras in the Stathatou collection and Toronto, note 9, above. The deer under the handles with outstretched front legs and neck are less easy to parallel; in pose, though not in style, the nearest analogy seems the Geroulanos hydria, AJA 63, 1959, pl. 45.
35 Eleusis 1089, Cook, pl. 40a, cf. the deer on the standed bowl Kerameikos 301: Ker V 1, taf. 126; Davison, fig. 62. An unusual touch on the Melbourne vase is on the neck frieze at the back, where a fawn is found (see Fig. 3), probably because the artist did not leave space for an adult; although I know no other exactly the same, parallels can be found in the inclusion of a colt at the end of a row of horses on the Stathatou Painter’s Toronto amphora (note 9, above) and the Analatos Painter’s British Museum lid: Cook, pl. 42a (also on Würzburg Η 4988, note 31, above; CVA 1, abb. 3; and on the hydria, Mainz University 47, note 6, above).
36 Coldstream, pp. 63–64, places the young Analatos Painter’s apprenticeship under the Stathatou Painter; one detail at least on our vase argues against this, the vertical strands of hair standing erect from the females’ heads, a trait otherwise found in the work of the Painter of Athens 894 (e.g. Fig. 7) but not, I think, of the Stathatou Painter.
37 See Cook, pp. 172–76; Cook, BSA 42, 1947, pp. 142–43; cf. JHS 81, 1961, p. 221. There are perceptive comments on the Analatos Painter’s style, as well as on relative chronology, in C. Brokaw, AM 78, 1963, pp. 63–73. Also Brann, in Agora VIII, p. 19 (an excellent sketch); EAA I, 1958, pp. 338–40 (L. Banti); Hampe, pp. 77–78.
38 This and the next quotation are from Brann, Agora VIII, p. 19.
39 Brann, in Agora VIII, p. 19, calls the Analatos Painter ‘a Geometric mannerist in part’; cf. AJA 63, 1959, p. 179. On Louvre CA 2985, Arias-Hirmer, pl. II, where Brokaw, p. 72, finds a ‘pedantry’ and almost stifling richess, our painter in reality attempts to achieve a stately monumentality, a revised classicism, utilising the new manner but not letting it go to his head – he was not an expressive artist.
40 The Stathatou Painter could paint animal friezes and even chariots which proceed from right to left against the normal flow, as on his name vase and the Toronto and Essen amphoras (see note 9, above); but to reverse the orientation of a corpse in a prothesis, where one might expect a sanctioned scheme, seems to me a surprising experiment of a quite different order.
41 There is no sign of the Orientalising plant motifs, for instance, which are in full flower by the time of Fig, 8; on the Melbourne vase all the decorative ornaments are characteristic Late Geometric, except for the diamond complexes in the neck panel.