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A Sam Wide Group Cup in Oxford

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

John Boardman
Affiliation:
Merton College, Oxford

Extract

Mrs Ure has recalled attention in recent JHS Notes (lxxxviii [1968] 140 f.; lxxxix [1969] 120 f.) to the class of fifth-century Corinthian cups and other small vases studied formerly by Sam Wide (in AM xxvi [1901] 143 ff.) and her (in JHS lxix [1949] 18 ff.). It is surely time the class had a name and, with Mrs Ure's approval, I suggest ‘The Sam Wide Group’. Mrs Ure mentions a cup of the group in Oxford and I take this opportunity to publish it. It is in private possession but at present exhibited in the Ashmolean museum, whose photographs of it are shown here (Plate II 1–2). The fabric and the outside decoration (partly painted handles, tongues on the lip, a band within the concave foot) are wholly normal for this group. The cup interior, which carries the figure decoration, measures 9.2 cm across. The paint is a reddish brown, used with varying intensity from the pale wash for hatching to heavy stippling over painted areas (as the cloak). The scene is of Oedipus and the Sphinx—with a difference which is easier to describe than explain. Oedipus sits at the left, his petasos slung behind his neck, his sword drawn and held upright over his knees. A chlamys fastened round his neck appears to be raised in a protective gesture over his head. Passing from the ridiculous to the sublime we might compare the gesture of a Niobe protecting her child. The left arm holding the drapery is not shown, but this explanation seems the most plausible. The only alternative is that this is the rock on which we might expect the Sphinx otherwise to be sitting, and which can be shown in this form. The monster is perched on a column with a volute capital which is not strictly Ionic but of the type commonly seen on vases for structures or furniture. A high plinth over the volutes serves as base for the creature, rocking back on its haunches, balancing, it seems, on a springy tail.

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1970

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References

1 ἑαυτὴν διεσπάραξεν (Σ. Ε. Phoen. 50). For the Oedipus scenes on vases see Brommer, , Vasenlisten 2 340 f.Google Scholar

2 ARV 2 451, no. 1, by the Oedipus Painter; 485, no. 24, by Hermonax. When it appears with visitors, on a low base, on early fifth-century lekythoi, it cannot be the Theban but is probably a tomb monument. Compare the cock and siren similarly placed on contemporary vases ( Haspels, , ABL 130 Google Scholar, no. 3, 151; AM xxxi [1906] 150).

3 The most recently found of these is in Cyrene, , Libya Antigua iii/iv (1966/1997) 190ff.Google Scholar

4 Mrs Stillwell dated them to the early fifth century (see CVA Reading i, 27) and Mrs Callipolitis to no later than the third quarter of the fifth century (BCH lxxxvi [1962] 142). Another indication in favour of a late date is Herakles' body corselet, as on CVA Reading i pl. 16.5.

5 Berlin 3186, CVA iii pl. 148.4. It is inscribed Kassm[i]a. I am indebted to Professor Greifenhagen for the photograph used here.

6 Ure, in JHS lxix (1949) 18 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; JHS lxxii (1952) 121; CQ xlix (1955) 228; CVA Reading i 27, pl. 16.4; Rose, in JHS lxxii (1952) 121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Thus Brommer in PW Suppl. viii 963, who objects that Dionysos' horns should be a bull's not a goat's.

8 CVA Lecce i IV.Ds pl. 3.4, 5; Herbig, , Pan pl. 23.3.Google Scholar

9 Cf. ibid., pl. 20.1.