Chicago
1892.125
Attic Red Figure Pyxis with Lid
The Euaion Painter
ca.440 B.C.
The Art Institute of Chicago; gift of Charles L. Hutchinson, 1892
(1892.125).
The Vase: h. with lid 13.2 cm.
Pyxis: h. 8.7 cm; d. of mouth 7.0 cm; d. of inset rim 7.6 cm; d. of foot 7.1 cm.
Lid: h. 5.0 cm; d. of rim 10.5 cm; d. of inset rim 7.8 cm. Intact, with some
chipping, pitting, and wear on the pyxis inside and out, particularly on edges
and at joins; some wear and chipping on edges of cover. In the picture zone
small chips and wear or disintegration affect particularly the finger of Boreas'
right hand, instep of his right foot, left hand of woman running right to
Erechtheus, midsection of Erechtheus' staff. There is good black glaze inside.
All reserved areas including the under-surfaces of lid and base are covered with
red wash. The red about the grooved circle at join of knob-stem and lid looks
like added red paint but may be wash. The pyxis is of type A, with concave
sides, flanged over the base, and a flat lid with pomegranate knob, the stem of
which flares to meet the lid in a tooled groove. The lid is flanged steeply at
the sides to meet the inset rim of the pyxis. The foot is ogee-shaped with a
narrow turned edge; the resting surface is reserved, its inner side black, the
base underneath reserved with a black circle and dot in the center.
Decoration: Foot and flaring base
are black and so are the top and stem of the pomegranate knob. The reserved knob
has three black lines encircling it, reflecting the reserved lines bounding the
decorative borders of lid and pyxis, the black edges of all the angled portions
of the vase, and the black line where lid and pyxis meet. Dotted "tongues" on
the flanged surface above the base reflect those on the flared surface of the
lid's underside and those on the lid encircling the stem; they are a
counterpoise to the motion of the figured zone and to that of the olive wreath
which runs around the outer edge of the lid.
On the body of the vase, Boreas, the North wind, pursues Oreithyia,
daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens. Her two companions, probably her
sisters, flee to the king, one before Oreithyia, one away from Boreas, with
heads turned back to watch the pursuit. The four figures race about the vase,
arms and legs swung out to fill the wide spaces between them, coming to a sudden
halt with the stationary figure of Erechtheus, standing firm, his staff held
upright. Only two figures are visible at one time. Boreas is winged, with short
curly hair and beard. He wears the short chitoniskos. Oreithyia, hair tied up in
a red-painted head-band, wears the Doric chiton with overfold, open at the side.
The girl who runs in front wears a short sleeveless embroidered garment over her
chiton, her unbound curly hair windblown. The girl running left from Boreas, her
hair tied up in a red-painted band, wears the Doric chiton with long, belted
overfold, dark-bordered at the hems. Erechtheus is cloaked in a himation. His
hair and beard are rendered in separate strands with white paint, his crown or
wreath in thin glaze. Thin glaze is used for neck tendons, inner markings of
arms, legs, drapery, and wings, and for fringes of hair.
Relief outline is infrequent and scattered: backs of necks, a
shoulder, a shin, a line of arm, a bit of drapery; of the faces, only the nose
of the woman running in front of Oreithyia is outlined. The broad contour lines
are visible. Sketch marks show heads, arms, legs under clothing, wings; they are
particularly noticeable for Erechtheus' face, and his whole body through the
himation. There are indications that Oreithyia's chin was started high at about
the level of the preserved upper lip; marks on Oreithyia's shoulders are
probably accidental. Marks across Boreas' upper arms look like thin glaze. A
compass must have been used on the lid for it appears to have slipped over the
wreath, where wash has collected in the groove.
Boreas, the North Wind, was dear to the Athenians. He had aided them
against the Persians in 480 B.C., blowing a storm which wrecked the invaders'
ships against the Thessalian coast in northern Greece. Herodotus tells of the
Athenians receiving an oracle which advised them to ask help from their
son-in-law. They duly sacrificed to the wind, who was said to have carried off
their princess Oreithyia, daughter of the king Erechtheus. The paintings of the
following decades show Boreas pursuing Oreithyia, on a variety of vase-shapes by
a variety of artists. Herodotus continues his story with the Persians
sacrificing to Thetis the Nereid, whom Peleus was supposed to have carried off
from the coast where the Persian ships lay battered (
Hdt 7.189-191). That pursuit too was a
popular subject for contemporary vase-painters. There are three versions of
Boreas and Oreithyia by the Euaion Painter, all late, two on pyxides, one on a
cup. The cup,
Frankfort Mus. V.F. 406 (
ARV2, 796, no. 117), has the same cast of
characters as the Chicago pyxis, and comparable details appear also in another
pursuit scene on the cup's reverse. There are similar details of dress and
drawing on a cup (
Oxford 1927.71:
ARV2, 790, no. 16) with scenes of maenads
and satyrs, also a late work by the painter.
The Euaion Painter, called after a kalos-name on a cup in Paris
(
ARV2, 789, no. 5), was a follower
of Douris, belonging to the same "academic" wing of vase-painting as the Villa
Giulia and the Chicago Painters. Cups were his main produce, but the Chicago
pyxis by him has a particular significance, according to a recent study of the
vase-shape by Sally Rutherford Roberts (
infra). Through its shape and subsidiary decoration it connects a class of
pyxides by the Euaion Painter, the Chicago Painter, and other, undetermined,
followers of Douris, with two pyxides by the Phiale Painter, who was a pupil of
the Achilles Painter and a painter of Nolan amphorae and lekythoi (
Roberts 1978, 96f. and 129f.).
The Achilles Painter and the Phiale Painter also wrote "Euaion kalos"
on several of their vases, and the name appears on other vases as well (one, a
contemporary white-ground lekythos in The Art Institute of Chicago). The
"Euaion" admired by these painters was most probably the son of the Athenian
tragedian Aeschylus: he is known to have had a son of that name whose age
accords with the chronology of the vases bearing the name, and the patronymic
occurs in three of the inscriptions (Beazley in
AJA 33 (1929) 364ff.
and
ARV2, 1579).
Roberts' work records some interesting observations: that the Attic
pyxis is derived from a Corinthian shape (as is the Attic column krater, for
which see
Detroit 24.120); that in the fifth
century it was probably called kylichnis—only much later did the word
"pyxis," from which our word "box" derives, become usual; that it was a woman's
object for holding cosmetics and jewelry; that it was used as gift for weddings
and funerals for both of which Boreas' pursuit was an appropriate subject,
"symbolic of either marriage or of death" (
Roberts 1978, 9, 2ff., 179; the quotation from 179).
There is a splendid cup by the Euaion Painter in Kansas City,
Missouri (
ARV2, 791, no. 35) and
fragments by him and in his manner in The University of Chicago (
ARV2, 790, no. 8 and 799, no. 7).
Bibliography
ARV2, 798, no. 147;
Roberts 1978, 130f. and pl. 77, no.
3.
Louise Berge
