University of Chicago 1967.115.410
Attic Red-Figure Fragment
The Niobid Painter
ca. 450 B.C.
Lent by The David and Alfred Smart Gallery, The University of
Chicago; given by Professor F. B. Tarbell (1967.115.410, formerly UC 319).
The Vase: Max. dim. 4.5 cm; th. 0.5
cm. From the wall of a small, closed, strongly curved vase, such as an oinochoe;
thin streaky matt black inside; fine, very shiny black glaze outside.
1
Decoration: The shoulder and
upturned head of a woman to right. She wears chiton, necklace with one pendant,
and around her head a broad fillet over a diadem with two upstanding leaves. The
fillet is done in yellow paint over white. Raised dots of black indicate curls
about her face; thin glaze was used for the long curly strands of hair down her
back and over her shoulder; thin glaze for the neck muscle. Relief outline is
used everywhere, even for outline of head within the usual reserved outline, and
for her back under the long hair. A sketch mark is visible along the line of her
throat. Part of the pomegranate-net bordering the picture on the left side
remains, and a small part of the reserved line from the upper border.
The strong double curvature supports Beazley's conjecture that the
fragment might be from an oinochoe of shape 3, called
chous in antiquity: a low handle attached to a trefoil
mouth and bulbous body which meet in an unbroken curve from lip to low foot.
Black-figure oinochoai of various types have pictures framed at the sides with
pomegranate-net design or its degenerate, a double row of dots. A number of
red-figure oinochoai of Shape 1 have that border pattern (all are by painters of
column kraters, for which it is a normal side border), and it even appears a few
times on choes, but it does not belong to the red-figure shape. The number of
red-figure choes by recognized painters from the first half of the century is
small and even the five certain choes attributed to the Niobid Painter are an
unusual number for one artist. Two of those have unframed pictures; the others
have a side border normal for framed pictures on red-figure choes, a simple
reserved line. Often in Attic vase-painting a person is meant to be singing when
he is represented with his head flung back (cf.
Bieber in AJA 45 [1941]
529); just so, the lady here is probably singing and might have been
holding a lyre since her arm was stretched forward. She is not seated: the
reserved area at her back which might be taken for the back of a
klismos (cf. the chair on the obverse of
Chicago 1922.2197) is not outlined and was surely only
intended to set off her hair. There would have been at most one other figure
— the vase is small and the Niobid Painter leaves space between his
figures on his less grandiose vases. For the line at neck, the ear, and the eye
on this fragment compare similar, although larger scale, details on the
painter's name-piece, also late, the famous calyx-krater,
Louvre G 341 (
ARV2, 601,
no. 22;
Arias & Hirmer
1962, pls. 173-175), especially those of the recumbent youth and
Athena on the obverse. Contrast the eye and heavier line of the early fragment,
University of Chicago 1967.115.60. The
relief line bordering the reserved outline of the head is characteristic (cf.
Chicago 1922.2197). For the hair, the
head-band, the line of throat, the narrow pleats of chiton, cf. the woman with
helmet and spear on the late volute krater
Boston
33.56 (
ARV2, 600, no. 12;
AJA 67 [1963] pl. 11, fig. 8). For
the chous:
Richter & Milne 1935,
19f.;
Hoorn 1951. For the
net-pattern on choes, Homer A. Thompson in
Hesperia 27 (1958) 158. Net or
dots framing sides of pictures on oinochoai of Shape 1:
ARV2, 242, no. 80 (Myson), 517, no. 11 (Cleveland Painter),
527, nos. 73 and 74 (Orchard Painter), 557, no. 125 (Pan Painter); on
oinochoai of shape 3: a fragment from Athens,
Athens, Acr. F 102, and
ARV2, 242,
nos. 78 and 79 (Myson).
Bibliography
Johnson 1938, 356, no.
25;
ARV1, 99, no. 81;
ARV2, 608, no. 99.
Louise Berge
