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A Protokorinthian Lekythos in the British Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The little vase of which a coloured illustration is given on Plates I. and II. has already been laid before the Society with a brief notice in the last number of the Journal, p. 253: before that publication appeared, it had already been the subject of articles in the Classical Review and the Times, so that most people are already aware of the melancholy interest which attaches itself to it. It was presented to the British Museum by Mr. Malcolm Macmillan in the spring of 1889, shortly before he started on the expedition which had so mysterious a termination. It was felt that the surpassing charm of this little Greek masterpiece was well worthy of any pains that could be bestowed on its reproduction; and it is to the generosity of Mr. Macmillan's family that the Society owes the excellent facsimile which accompanies this paper.

In spite of its diminutive proportions—it is only .068 mètre in height— this little lekythos will certainly henceforth rank among the mirabilia of our national collection. Its claims to distinction are based, not only upon its intrinsic merit as a chef d'oeuvre of art, but also on the fact that, belonging to a highly interesting class of Greek painted pottery, it is beyond all doubt the most beautiful and important specimen of that class which has yet come down to us.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1890

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References

page 167 note 1 The reproduction issued in the preceding number of the Journal was too small to give an adequate impression of the style and colouring. The present plate moreover renders more successfully the modelling of the lion's head, by which the vase is surmounted.

page 167 note 2 Berlin Vase Cat., No. 336.

page 169 note 1 See Klein, in Arch.-Epig. Mittheil. vol. xi. 205Google Scholar.

page 169 note 2 Antike Denkmäler, i. pll. 7 and 8.

page 170 note 1 See the bull's head in gold and silver, Schliemann, , Mycenœ, pp. 216Google Scholar, 217, figs. 327, 328, and the very similar vase of terra-cotta, Hellenic Journal, vol. viii. pl. 83, fig. 9.

page 171 note 1 Arch. Jahrb. 1887, p. 33.

page 171 note 2 See Roscher, 's Lexicon, s.v. Gorgon, p. 1713.Google Scholar

page 171 note 3 See Arch. Jahrb. 1886, p. 134, fig. 2948; and on a Kamiros pinax, Rayet, , Céramique, p. 47, fig. 27.Google Scholar

page 172 note 1 Cf. the types of running or flying Gryphon in Egyptian and Mykenaean art, Roscher, 's Lexicon, s.v. Gryps, p. 1745Google Scholar.

page 173 note 1 Bronzefunde aus Olympia, pp. 46, 51; and cf. Arch. Zeit. 41, p. 154.

page 173 note 2 Italiker in der Poebene, pp. 84 foll.; Annali, 1877, p. 406.

page 173 note 3 Arch. Jahrbuch, 1887, p. 18.

page 174 note 1 Berlin Cat. of Vases, No. 1655; cf. also ibid (early Attic), No. 1712; Annali 1855, Tav. 20. The representation of κελητίζοντες pueri was popular among the early bronze workers of the Korinthian-Sikyonian school (Overbeck, Schriftq. Nos. 406, 456); and on one of the painted Korinthian pinakes (Ant. Denkm. i. pl. 8, fig. 20) a sculptor is shown modelling the group of a boy on horseback. Loeschcke, in Arch. Jahrb. 1887, p. 277Google Scholar raises the question as to whether the vase-painters originally had in view the association of the rider with the arttype of the dead person as a horseman. Where however as here the type is distinctly agonistic, it seems much more natural to connect it with the notion of funeral games, as in the Amphiaraus vase also.

page 175 note 1 Cf. the Oinochoe, Dipylon from Rhodes in Arch. Jahrb. 1886, p. 135Google Scholar, which has the same snake moulded on the handle.

page 175 note 2 The Korinthian, gold band with reliefs (Arch. Zeit. vol. 42, pl. 8Google Scholar) gives us further evidence of the Geometric system at Korinth.

page 177 note 1 See e.g. a Korinthian oinochoe of ‘Oriental’ style in the British Museum.

page 177 note 2 Cf. the similar frieze stamped from a cylinder on the vase in Mus. Greg. ii. 99, fig. 6; beneath the horses are represented plants and lotos buds, a metal bowl from Dali has a frieze of boys on horseback with whips, and birds flying beside them in the field (Perrot et Chipiez, iii. p. 779, fig. 548).

page 178 note 1 Amongst the pottery found in Rhodian tombs previous to the time of Attic importations almost all the known fabrics are represented by corresponding local imitations. I am inclined to think that there was no independent painted ware made in the island (except perhaps the ‘Fikellura’ ware) which was not thus imitated; as a rule these local imitations were executed only in two colours (blackish brown on reddish clay) and without incising.

page 178 note 2 Hesiod, , Scut. Her. 173Google Scholar.

page 179 note 1 Hesiod, , Scut. Her. 316Google Scholar.

page 179 note 2 A similar figure occurs on an early coin of uncertain (Asia Minor?) locality, see Numismatic Chronicle, 1890, pl. ii. 8.

page 180 note 1 The same tree occurs in another Proto korinthian lekythos (in the British Museum), from Kamiros in Rhodes; but in that case it is of much more developed and complicated form.

page 180 note 2 Cf. the figures of the Boreades in the Kyrene cup, Naukratis, part i. pl. viii.

page 180 note 3 According to Biliotti's Diary of Excavations in Rhodes, two Protokorinthian lekythi were found ‘between the walls D and E’ of the Akropolis at Kamiros, together with the following objects (marked C 10 and C 12): ‘various porcelain statuettes and fragments; a bronze camel kneeling, with a man on its back: Archaic terra-cotta statuette; an iron spear and undulated blade; fragments of stone statuettes and animals; a sea-shell covered with incised ornaments, Egyptian style.’