Symposium

Title: Symposium
Repository: British Museum
Alternative: Cup Old Catalogue 852 Vase E68
Creator: Brygos Painter
Photographer: Lowenstam, Steven
Creator Display: attributed to Brygos Painter (Attic vase painter, active ca. 490-ca. 470 BCE)
Description: Pottery: red-figured cup. INTERIOR: symposiast and girl dancer. A youth reclines against a large striped cushion on a couch (only the horizontal board shown) to the left. He is named ΠΙLΙΠΟΣ (retr.; for Philippos). He wears a dotted himation with a black border on his left shoulder and over his lower body and has a red wreath in his hair. He grips a pair of pipes in his left hand and holds his right arm out straight to the left in what might be a gesture to stop. His mouth is open. In front of the couch, to the left, dances a very young girl, named ΚΑLLIΣΤΟ, who has straight short-cut hair and wears a transparent chiton and a red wreath in her hair. She lifts up her chiton with both hands so that it is slightly raised, either to facilitate her dance or to reveal her ankles. Her left foot is off the ground and she looks downwards. To the right the narrow end of a three-legged table is shown (the rest being cut off by the tondo frame) on which are a skyphos (black handle outwards) and four red garlands. In the background behind the youth his spotted flute-case {sybene) is suspended and his knotty stick leans against the border. Border: groups of three units of stopt maeander (four-stroke, anticlockwise) alternating with dotted cross-squares. EXTERIOR: symposium. Side A (upper): two symposiasts accompanied by two hetairai and a youth with a barbiton. On the left a youth dressed in a himation (black border) and shoes leans against a fluted column with a plain block base and a Doric capital over a collar of ovolos. He has a red wreath in his blond hair (dilute glaze used) and holds out a barbiton (seven strings done in relief line) with both hands: a plektron (reserved handle; red end) is attached to its frame by a red cord (his chest and upper arms are lost). At the foot of the first couch sits a blond-haired hetaira wearing chiton, dotted himation with a battlement border, plain sakkos and disc earring, her feet resting on a plain block. She has a red wreath around her head and holds a large cup by the stem and one handle: on it is written KALE. She seems to look at the full cup with great concentration and her mouth is slightly open. Over the girl is written ΠILΟΝ KALΟΣ (for Philon). On the couch a youth reclines to the left, but turns his head back to the right, his mouth open. He wears a himation (battlement border at waist) and a thick reserved fillet, the tail of which he holds in his right hand. He leans against a striped cushion, his elbow actually on the turned post of the couch (all the couches on the exterior have dilute glaze strokes to indicate the grain of the wood). In front of his couch is a three-legged table. On the wall above his knee a footed food basket with red ties is suspended by a red loop. Over his head is written: ΔΕΜΟΝΙΚΟΣ. On the right stands a blond-haired woman wearing a chiton (dilute glaze folds on sleeves), a sakkos decorated with zigzags, a disc earring and a red wreath. She plays the pipes, a relief line to show that her cheeks are puffed. On the far right a bearded man reclines to the left. He wears a dotted himation and a red wreath. His left arm dangles down but his right holds a skyphos out to the right: his little finger juts out stiffly. In front of the couch is a three-legged table. Behind the pipe-player a knotty stick rests against the cushion of the first symposiast. Above his companion a footed food basket with red ties is hung from a red loop. Above him is written: ΑΡΙΣΤΟΚΡΑΤΕΣ. Side Β (lower): two symposiasts accompanied by two hetairai and a youth with a dipper and a strainer. On the extreme left is a fluted column with a plain block base and a Doric capital over an ovolo collar. A naked boy with a red wreath in his hair leans against it, his right leg flexed, his weight on his frontal left leg. He looks to the left, but his torso and left leg are frontal; his right leg is flexed behind so that it rests only on the toes. He holds a dipper with a long handle terminating in a duck's head and a strainer (the holes in the central perforated disc are done with dilute glaze). There is an accidental splash of added red on his left shoulder. Up on the right a food basket with red ties is suspended by a red loop and above it is written ΗΟΠΑΙΣΚΑLΟΣ. At the foot of the left-hand couch a woman sits on a plain stool with a plain cushion, playing the pipes. She is dressed in chiton (dilute glaze folds on the sleeves) and himation (black border) and has a red wreath around her short cut blond hair (dilute glaze). On the couch a bearded man reclines to the left. He has twisted his head and torso round to the right and holds out a skyphos in his right hand (little finger extended). He wears a dotted himation with a black border and has a red wreath in his hair. He leans against a striped cushion. Over his knee is hung a chelys lyre and under his couch rests a pair of boots (one in profile, one back view). Over his head is written his name: ΔΙΠΙLΟΣ (for Diphilos). Further to the right, beyond a spotted flute-case hanging in the field is written ΚΑLΟΣ. On the right hand couch are a hetaira and a youth. On the right is the youth, his dotted himation in disarray and his right foot raised. He has grasped the hetaira by her left wrist and has put his right hand on her left shoulder. He has a red wreath in his hair and leans against a striped cushion. His mouth is slightly open. The hetaira, who wears a chiton, girt at the waist with a black girdle, has her right hand under the youth's right elbow. Her right heel rests on the end of the couch; her left foot dangles beside it. Her hair has two wavy dilute lines below the main mass. Above and behind their legs a food basket with red ties hangs from a red loop; on the floor under the couch is an animal-legged footstool decorated with two stars — against it rests a pair of sandals (that in the centre seen from under the sole, that at the right hand end seen edge-on). Over their two heads is the inscription: ΝΙΚΟΠΙLΕ KALE (for Nikophile). Ground line: double reserved line. Relief line contour throughout (except hair); dilute glaze for minor interior markings; thick reserved line inside lip, thin outside; added red for inscriptions. --The British Museum Williams, Dyfri, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain 17, British Museum 9, London, BMP, 1993; A Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum, London, William Nicol, 1851; Walters, H B; Forsdyke, E J; Smith, C H, Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum, I-IV, London, BMP, 1893
View: Interior
Coverage: Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece (creation) Vulci, Lazio, Italy (discovery)
Temporal: 490-480 BCE
Subject: Pottery V Red Figure Symposium Red Figure, White, Animal
Style Period: Red-figure Attic (Mainland Greek pottery styles)
Work Type: cups (drinking vessels)
Date: -0490/-0480
Identifier: Lowenstam_VRC_06224
Item Locator: Box 14, Section 7
Rights: In Copyright
Dc Rights Holder: University of Oregon, Department of Classics
Local Collection Name: Steven Lowenstam Collection
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Measurements: Width: 39.7 cm Diameter: 31.9 cm Diameter: 17.3 cm (of tondo) Height: 12.7 cm Diameter: 13.9 cm (of exterior ground line) Diameter: 12 cm (of foot)
Material: pottery | painted
Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Primary Set: Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
Institution: University of Oregon
Cultural Context: Attic (culture)
Id Current Repository: 1848,0619.7