Phoenix Ancient Art S.A.

A kylix is a wine-cup with a broad, shallow bowl and two horizontal handles, slanting slightly upward from the sides of the cup. This example has a trumpet shaped foot that forms a continuous profile with the bowl. Areas near the handles and the interiors of the handles themselves are reserved in the reddish color of the clay. Under each handle is a circumscribed palmette with tendrils at the sides and at the base of each palmette. There are two reserved lines on either side of the rim. A graffito of two letters, in the shape of a closed Η (eta) and a Λ (gamma of fifth century B.C. form), is incised on the underside of the foot, between a concentric band and a line of black slip.

The Penthesilea Painter was named by Beazley after a composition on the interior of a large kylix in Munich depicting an amazonomachy, a battle between Greeks and Amazons, in this case likely representing Achilles killing Penthesilea. Reflecting the trend toward greater naturalism in the early Classical Period, the drawing style of the Penthesilea Painter and his associates, at first glance, appears sketchy and hasty compared with their predecessors, but their figures are more lively and fluid, and they adopt more inventive poses. This kylix is an exquisite example of the painter’s style. It is one of a large number of cups issuing from the Penthesilea Painter’s workshop, which was established shortly after 470 B.C. and lasted for at least three decades. Beazley assigned some 1500 vases to the artist and his associates, naming twenty painters involved in their manufacture. This is one of the earliest instances in vase painting where the organization of painters in such a large workshop can be so clearly noted. The Penthesilea Painter himself stands out from his associates not only for his skills as a draftsman but also for the liveliness and naturalism of his figural compositions, which seem to take us into the very heart of Athenian society with its workers, wives, athletes, and citizen warriors. Occasionally, two painters in his workshop collaborated on a single vase – almost forty examples involving ten painters have been noted. On examples where the Penthesilea Painter himself collaborated with another artist, it was he who painted the tondo, while the other artist decorated the exterior. This may indicate that the interior decoration of a cup was considered the principal field for decoration.

The figure scene on the interior of the cup is set within a tondo framed by an ornamental band consisting of stopt meanders facing left and three cross-in-square designs. A standing youth, wearing a himation dropped to his waist, leans on a walking stick while gesturing to a boy seated on a stool. The boy is muffled in a himation that covers his head and holds a walking stick diagonally across his lap. To the left is a laver with its basin supported by a small Ionic column. The basin is inscribed with four letters, perhaps ΠΑΙΣ -- “boy.” The laver, used by athletes for washing, sets the scene in the palaestra. The inscription, ΗΟ ΠΑΙΣ [Κ]ΑΛΟΣ -- “the boy is beautiful,” is written in the field.

The scenes on both sides of the cup’s exterior are thematically related, each showing youths in a school setting. In the center of side A, a youth is seated on a type of high-backed chair, a klismos, usually reserved for use by the teacher rather than pupil. The seated youth’s hair, short cropped and curly, provides him with an added distinction since the other figures have longer, straight hair. Wearing a himation and holding a walking stick, as do all of the figures, the youth leans forward in a natural pose, extending his right hand, in which he holds a flower. This is perhaps a gift for the youth standing at the right, who bows toward the seated youth and holds an open writing case in his outstretched right hand. A bag for gaming pieces, a phormiskos, hangs in the field between the two figures. At the far left, a standing youth is twisting around to look back at the interaction between the other two youths. His crossed legs and expressive gesture lend an air of reality to the pose. Half of a shield, decorated with a device representing a chariot wheel, hangs between the standing and seated youths. The inscription, ΗΟ ΠΑΙΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ, is written twice, and in two lines, at the upper right and left sides of the figure scene, near the handles.

On the other side of the cup, side B, three youths wearing himatia and holding walking sticks are engaged in a lively encounter, with animated postures and expressive, gesturing hands. The central figure walks to the right, holding a phormiskos in his left hand and a walking stick in his right. His bare upper torso, displaying distinctive clavicles and well-developed pectoral muscles, is frontal, while his left leg is in profile and his right leg is in three-quarter view. This youth is a particularly exquisite example of the lively, free-style of figure drawing that is a hallmark of red-figure vase painting of this period. To the left and right stand two of his companions, who gesture toward him with outstretched arms. At the far left stands a column with an Ionic capital supporting a partially shown frieze of triglyphs and metopes, perhaps indicating a colonnaded stoa, the location of the youth’s academic instruction. The inscription, ΗΟ ΠΑΙΣ ΚΑΛΟΣ, is written in two lines at the upper right of the scene, between the central figure and the youth at the right.

Bibliography:
Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. Oxford 1963, pp. 877 – 971; ARV² 882.36.

Boardman, J. Athenian Red-Figure Vases: The Archaic Period. London 1975, pp. 38 – 39

Robertson, M. The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens. Cambridge 1992, pp. 160 – 66.