Nereides Bring Arms

Title: Nereides Bring Arms
Repository: British Museum
Alternative: Pelike Vase E363
Creator: unknown
Photographer: Lowenstam, Steven
Creator Display: unknown Ancient Greek (vase painter)
Description: Pottery: red-figured pelike. (a) Thetis and a Nereid bringing arms, made by Hephaistos, to Achilles who mourns Patroclus. In the centre Achilles is seated in a chair to left in a dejected attitude, closely wrapped in his mantle, which is passed over the back of his head; he holds on his left arm a knotted staff, and wears a fillet with a vertical piece over the forehead, and sandals; on the chair is a fringed and embroidered cloth; beside his head, KAΛΟΣ, καλός. Thetis, approaching from left, has thrown her arms around his neck; she wears an Ionic chiton with dotted sleeves and embroidered diploidion, bracelets, and earrings, and her hair is looped up with a radiated stephane. Behind her a Nereid stands (similar dress, large brooch fastening diploidion on right shoulder, saccos with crosses, dotted fillet, bracelets), holding a spear and a high crested helmet. On left is Athene, who from the gesture of her right appears to be speaking. She carries a spear on her left arm and wears an Ionic chiton, tied, and a himation over her shoulders, aegis with scaly surface reaching to below waist, bracelets, and a helmet with raised cheek-pieces. The cheek-pieces of this helmet are decorated with a snake moving upwards; those of the other helmet have scale pattern; and in both the crest is supported by the arched back of a snake, whose head and tail project in front and at back. On right of Achilles a woman stands to front, holding the shield which Thetis has brought (device, in silhouette, a woman to front in chiton with apoptygma, looking to left, and holding at full extent of both arms a festooned taenia); she covers her face with her right at the sight of the goddesses. She wears sleeved chiton, himation, bracelets and earrings, and an opisthosphendone. On right stands a bearded old man looking on, leaning on his staff, draped in a mantle. The earrings have triple pendants. (b) Nereids with arms, and a Greek. The Greek, wreathed, stands to left with right resting on spear, closely draped in a mantle, which passes over the back of his head. Facing him are two Nereids, one holding a cuirass (side view), the other, holding a sword in her right (the scabbard decorated with zigzags), raises with her left the edge of her chiton; the alternate flaps of the cuirass and the chape of the scabbard are black. On right a third Nereid stands to left, holding up in her right a helmet of different form; in her left a sword, hanging by its belt, drawn entirely in silhouette, and against her left arm a spear; all three wear sleeved chiton and himation; the one on left wears a radiated fillet, the next one a dotted saccos and bracelets, and the one on right a radiated fillet and bracelets. On right ΚΑΛΟΣ, καλός. Beneath the handle on left of a, an altar in form of an Ionic capital, with volutes and necking. Beneath the other handle, a square base, on which is a helmet to left, the crest ornamented with a snake in light brown. Purple fillets, inscriptions, and wreaths in b. Brown upper folds of chiton of Thetis and of two Nereids. The hair and beard of the old man and his fillet are indicated in brown outline; the hair of Achilles, in single wavy brown lines. Eye in transition type. Below, a continuous band of key pattern; above each side, a strip of linked lotus buds. On the lower part of each handle, an inverted palmette. Around the neck, and below the design, a thin line of purple. The spears overlap the border. --The British Museum Walters, H B; Forsdyke, E J; Smith, C H, Catalogue of Vases in the British Museum, I-IV, London, BMP, 1893
View: Front
Coverage: Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece (creation) Kámiros, Aegean Islands, Greece (discovery)
Temporal: ca. 470 BCE
Subject: Iliad Book 19 Iliad II Thetis brings arms
Style Period: Red-figure Attic (Mainland Greek pottery styles)
Work Type: pelikai
Date: -0475/-0465
Identifier: Lowenstam_VRC_01045
Item Locator: Box 3, Section 2
Rights: In Copyright
Dc Rights Holder: University of Oregon, Department of Classics
Local Collection Name: Steven Lowenstam Collection
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Measurements: Height: 36.195 cm
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: 1864,1007.126