Chicago
1889.16
Attic Red-Figure column krater
An Undetermined Earlier Mannerist
ca. 460 B.C.
The Art Institute of Chicago; gift of P.D. Armour and C. L.
Hutchinson, 1889 (1889.16). Found near Nola; ex Collection Judge Augusto Mele,
Naples, who is said to have bought it from the family of a general of the
Bourbon army.
The Vase: h. 46.5 cm; d. of mouth
29.3 cm; d. of rim 38.0 cm; h. of rim 4.5 cm; w. handle to handle 45.6 cm; max.
d. of body 36.6 cm at 28.0 cm from base; d. of foot 19.0 cm. Broken and
repaired. Missing parts are filled with plaster, in particular: joins of handles
and body, parts of ray decoration; on obverse, part of drapery of the winged
woman, a section of Salmoneus' head above the forehead, much of his left hand,
part of right hand of the woman at right, and her eye; on reverse, back of head;
part of neck, parts of drapery of figure at left, lower back hairline and parts
of lower drapery of central figure, parts of right wing, and cracks along figure
at right. The glaze fired greenish in many places; horizontal brush strokes are
apparent on the reverse of neck, and vertical ones on the surfaces of the vase
below handlezones and between picture panels; there is much abrasion on the
reverse figures. The rays were painted sloppily with the vase upside down; it
can be seen that they were painted first and then black was put on in horizontal
brush strokes above them and around the band at join of foot and body—too
soon, for they are smeared in places. The upper surfaces of the rim and
handle-plates are relatively flat. The foot is of two degrees of about equal
height, the upper angular in profile, the lower wider and of torus shape.
Decoration: The subsidiary
decoration is as that of the column krater,
Detroit
24.120, with palmettes over the handle-plates, lotus bud wreath around
top of rim and on neck of obverse, ivy around outside of rim; there are tongues
above, ivy at sides, and a reserved line below to frame the pictures; rays
surround the base; there are red lines painted around the vase at rim, inside
and out, under the picture, over the rays, and around the upper degree of the
foot.
Side A: Salmoneus maddened.
Salmoneus is shown challenging the heavens, leaning strongly to his right, right
leg bent, left outstretched and taut. His head is thrown back, the wild eye
rendered by circle and dot pupil. A smudge of thin glaze over the inside corner
of Salmoneus' eye and a line below it appear to be intended for eyelashes and
cheek-line. His left arm is held straight out brandishing high a sword; the
empty scabbard, dotted along the rim, is slung at his left side from a dotted
strap across his chest. The sword intrudes into the tongue decoration above the
picture, the bounding lines of which were painted across the sword. Along with
the sword he holds a wreath and chains in his left hand. His right arm is
lowered and tensed, in the hand a thunderbolt ready to be thrown. On his right
leg is a greave, on his left arm another; from his left ankle dangles a fetter;
fillets, wreaths and chains are tied about his body, arms and thighs; other
chains fall around him. Around his flowing golden hair, rendered in thin glaze,
there is a fillet and the remains of a wreath, branches of which fall in the
field about him. A winged woman at left runs left, looking back at Salmoneus.
The upper sections of her wings are dotted. She wears a spiral bracelet. A woman
at right stands facing left and leans away from Salmoneus. Both women wear
chiton and himation, the chiton of the one pleated, of the other dotted; both
lift their skirts fastidiously as they move; both have bands (the one at right
with leaves) encircling their long hair, the hair tied back at the ends. Red
paint was used for the women's head-bands, the wreaths, chains, and branches on
and about Salmoneus.
Side B: A woman stands to right
flanked by two Nikai, all three figures enveloped in himatia worn over chitons.
The Nike at left is turned away from the other two figures. The Nike at right
stands frontal, her head turned to the woman, her wings spread out on each side;
both raise their hands under their himatia. The frontal Nike has her hair bound
up in a bun with two red-painted bands; the other figures have their long hair
tied at the ends, long tresses of hair in thin glaze escaping over the shoulder
of the winged one; all have redpainted bands around their heads.
Relief outline was used sparingly on the obverse, except on
Salmoneus, where it is everywhere except for his hair and beard. There is no
relief outline on the reverse. Thin glaze was used extensively on both sides for
outline and for inner detail. Preliminary outlines are visible. Sketch marks
show on all figures, and indicate particularly that the chins of both women on
the obverse were started higher.
It has long been agreed that the story of Salmoneus, current in fifth
century Athens, accords with the picture shown here, although it is always
possible that the scene is from a story which has not come down to us. A satyr
play by Sophocles and a picture of Salmoneus by the mural painter Polygnotos
have been cited as inspiration for the vase-painting (
Robert, infra and
M. Robertson 1975. Salmoneus, a son of
Aeolus of Thessaly, is said to have founded a city in Elis, in the northwestern
Peloponnese, where Olympia is located. He became so arrogant that he began to
ape Zeus, simulating thunder and throwing objects about as thunderbolts until
Zeus bolted him with the real thing. Here then we would have Salmoneus about to
cast his pseudo-bolt, his derangement (for so his insolence would be considered
by the ancients) indicated by the fillets and wreaths bound round him, the
broken shackle at his ankle, the greave worn on his arm instead of his leg, the
sword in his left hand (cf. Robertson,
GRBS,
infra). The effect is heightened by the rendering of his eye with a circle and
dot for pupil and iris, the conventional form of eye for the wild Herakles. The
sword has troubled interpreters, but why more so than armor? Zeus carried
neither. Fillets are used to deck victors at the games, and possibly the winged
figure at left is Victory,
Nike, deserting the
manic. She has also been seen as Iris, winged messenger of the gods. The woman
at right may be Sidero, a wife of Salmoneus, or his daughter, Tyro.
An earlier interpretation has it that the central figure is another
son of Aeolus, Athamas, who also went mad. His story has to do with sacrifice,
for which fillets, wreaths, and shackles are also appropriate, but must be
stretched to include a thunderbolt (
Gardner
infra.) Are the Nikai on the other
side of the vase related to the winged figure on the obverse? The scenes need
not be connected, but Nikai were popular in vase-painting of the time (cf.
Champaign 70.8.4), and the winged woman on the
obverse probably prompted the painter to wing two of the usual three cloaked
figures on the reverse.
Aeolus spawned an interesting family of myths. Athamas fathered
Phryxis and Helle who rode across to Asia on a golden ram, giving name to the
Hellespont and rise to the story of the Golden Fleece. Another of Aeolus' sons,
brother to Salmoneus and Athamus, was Sisyphos, who is known for the punishment
he endured in perennially having to roll a stone uphill, only to have it roll
down again before reaching the top; it is possible that a picture on a column
krater in Mittelschreiberau (
ARV2, 243, no.
5) by another Mannerist painter refers to this story (cf. also
Moon 1979, no. 78).
The attribution of this vase turns on the relationships of the
Mannerist painters (see
Detroit 63.13 and
Detroit 24.120) and the Alkimachos Painter
with the Pan Painter. The spirit of the vase follows the Pan Painter's better
works, the style of drawing his lesser works. In 1912 Beazley attributed a
column krater, now
New York 10.210.14, to the
Pan Painter (
JHS 32 [1912] 355, no. 6). In 1918 he separated it from that
painter but did not group it with the Mannerists, whom he discussed at the same
time (
Beazley 1918, 118). In the same
publication he noted that the Alkimachos Painter was influenced by the Pan
Painter, but particularly by one of his better pieces (
Beazley 1918, 136). Later the New York krater was
given to a Mannerist, the Chicago krater to the Alkimachos Painter (
Beazley 1925, 250, no. 41 and 298, no.
33). By 1928 Beazley had connected the Chicago vase with the New York one
(
Beazley 1928b, infra), and
finally, in
ARV1, (infra), attributed
our column krater to a painter of the Mannerist workshop. To list the details in
which the style shows the influence of the Pan Painter would be to describe the
vase over again: compare such figures as those on his small pelikai and his
figures wrapped in himatia (so-called "mantle" figures).
The shape of the vase and the treatment of subsidiary decoration
direct the attention to the Mannerist workshop. The rim and handle-plates of a
Mannerist column krater are usually quite flat. The foot is characterized by the
angular profile of the upper degree, which is often as high as, if not higher
than, the torus-shaped lower degree. The lotus decoration, particularly that of
the neck, is characterized by the bean-shaped lower tendrils which do not cross
each other. There are column kraters of Mannerist shape and subsidiary
decoration which are not painted by Mannerists, as indeed one in Ruvo in the
manner of the Alkimachos Painter (
ARV2, 553,
no. 4), but it is likely that they were made in the Mannerist shop.
Contrast the shape and decoration of one by the Alkimachos Painter himself,
Bologna 236 (
ARV2, 532, no. 44). The Pan Painter's own column kraters were not
shop-shape and do not form a homogeneous group. They often find interesting
parallels outside the circle of the Mannerists, as for instance in the Cleveland
Painter's namepiece,
Cleveland 30.104.
Bibliography
The Art Institute of Chicago.
Preliminary Catalogue of Metal Work,
Graeco-Italian Vases and Antiquities (Chicago 1889) 36f.,
no. 301;
E. Gardner, "Vase in
Chicago Representing the Madness of Athamas," AJA 3 (1899) 331-344, pl. IV;
J. Hall, Four Old Greeks
(Chicago 1901) cover drawing;
C. Robert, "Zur Oidipussage," Apophoreton.
Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmänner, 47
(Berlin 1903) 106, in n. 2 to p. 105 (identification as madness of
Salmoneus);
W.H. Roscher,
"Salmoneus," Auführliches Lexikon der
Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, IV (Leipzig
1909) 291 f.;
Pauly-Wissowa
1920, 11, pp. 1989f;
Beazley
1925, 298, no. 33;
Beazley
1928b, 29, n.2;
ARV1, 396, no.
24;
ARV2, 585, no. 29;
EAA, VI, 1076, fig. 1185;
C. M. Robertson "Monocrepis," GRBSA 13
(1972) 44;
M. Robertson 1975,
246, 659, no. 154, and pl. 85b;
Brommer 1973, 548 (bottom).
Louise Berge
