Madison 1979.310
Attic Black-Figure Komast Cup KY Painter ca. 570 B.C. Lent by the Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Anonymous Fund and Humanistic Foundation Fund Purchase (1979.310). The Vase: H. 10.5 cm; W. 28.7 cm; D. of mouth 19.9 cm; D. of foot 7.6 cm. Mended from a few large fragments with a restored area in plaster on each side of the vase through the figure scene and another restoration on the off-set lip, above the florals, near handle B/A. On Side A (the better preserved) the design is lacking only the torso of the dancer on the left; on B the mid section of the dancer in the center, the upper torso and head of the dancer on the right and the top of the head and facial details of the dancer on the left are missing. The handles, foot and the entire interior of the cup are glazed. The glazing is thick and rich, especially vitreous. Insides of the handles, the edge and inside of the foot are reserved. On the underside of the foot-plate a black glazed circle marks the point of descent between the flat resting surface and the deep cone. In similar fashion a black line emphasizes the junction of the off-set lip to the cup. A reserve line is at the top of the lip and a black line is at the outer edge, toward the drinker. The clay is warm red-orange. Decoration: The subject is the same on each side of the cup: three padded dancers, the one in the middle and the fellow behind dance to the left, while the one in front (on the left) faces them, dancing to the right. Their heads are lowered, arms raised, as they dance spiritedly. Rosettes, incised, on the off-set lip; under each handle an arrangement of a palmette fan atop a big lotus flower, the whole joined by tendrils. Added red: torso and buttock pads worn by dancers; alternate petals both of rosettes and palmette fans and for the fans within lotus flowers; cuffs of lotus flowers, hearts and roots of palmettes. The lotuses in the configuration to the right of Side A have, above the red cuff, a band of abbreviated meanders; in the other arrangement this band is red. H. R. W. Smith's rule of thumb for the differences in subsidiary decoration between the KY Painter and the KX Painter, a slightly older contemporary and possibly a pupil of the Gorgon Painter (see Kansas City 59.22) was that the latter prefers florals which are nearer Corinthian in design while the former, as one sees on this cup, uses the newer, eventually traditional, Attic arrangement. A skyphos by the KY Painter (Bloomington 74.6.5, also unpublished) as Professor Amyx informally pointed out, has a Corinthian floral on one side of the padded dancers and an Attic configuration on the other — the skyphos at Bloomington was too fragile to travel to this exhibition. This Madison cup is undoubtedly by the KY Painter because of the composition — three dancers, the middle and right figure facing and moving left, the remaining one opposed — and because of the figure style — feet incised with three or four parallel lines, long plain hands, high foreheads. For the history of the shape, iconography and discussion of the painter see Burke & Pollitt 1975, 22-24, no. 29, with additional bibliography. The cup at Yale is comparable, but slightly smaller.(unpublished) W.G.M.