Altar Scene

Title: Altar Scene
Repository: British Museum
Alternative: Cup Old Catalogue 846 Vase E53
Creator: Douris
Photographer: Lowenstam, Steven
Creator Display: attributed to Douris (Greek vase painter and potter, active ca. 500-475 BCE)
Description: Pottery: red-figured cup. Foot now removed. INTERIOR: seated man at altar. A bearded man sits to the right on a plain stool clad in a himation (black border). With his right hand he pours a libation from a phiale over an altar, his left rests on the crutch of a plain stick. He wears a reserved apicate fillet and has high relief dots for the curls of his hair below it. His mouth is slightly open, suggesting the prayer that goes with a libation. The phiale is of the lobed or bossed type (relief line lobes, dilute glaze dashes within): the wine of the libation being poured is shown by a splash of red that covers the end of the phiale and the edge of the altar. The altar has two further splashes of red on it, presumably from an earlier sacrifice. Its top has an ovolo moulding above which is a volute-ended crown and a fire-brick. In the field on the right hangs a cup, seen from underneath. On the left of the man are hung a sponge, aryballos (circumscribed cross) and net bag with a loop at the bottom. Reserved exergue with a line at the top. Border: alternating false maeander (twelve-stroke, alternately clockwise and anticlockwise; repeated clockwise unit at three o'clock) and blackened cross-square. EXTERIOR: komos. Side A (upper): four dancing komasts and another. On the far left, a man moves to the right, but with his head turned back and down to the left. He wears a himation with a black border (as all the other komasts on the exterior) over his shoulders, his left hand holding up a bunch of folds above his left shoulder. His right hand must have held the plain stick (fragment with hand, shoulder and touch of forehead, with palmette, missing), which crosses his body. He, like all the other komasts, wears a thick reserved headband decorated with wavy dilute glaze lines and has relief dots over neck and forehead. The next komast moves to the right, but again looks back and down to the left. He has his himation over his shoulders and similarly picks at the folds on his left shoulder. He holds a large black skyphos in his right hand in front of his chest. It has a reserved lip and a reserved band below handle level. His right leg is shown in an awkward three-quarter view and his torso is frontal. In the centre a dancing man is shown in a particularly lively pose. He wears a himation over his shoulders and up over the back of his head. His legs are splayed, the right one bent up high; his torso frontal. His hands are clasped together on the right, the fingers and thumbs clearly entwined, index fingers raised. To the right of him a man moves to the left, head turned back to the right and up. His left arm and shoulder are covered with a himation; his right arm is bent up with the fingers slightly spread. His torso is frontal and his left foot seen in three-quarter frontal view. On the far right a man wearing a himation in the normal fashion moves to the left. He holds a cup in his left hand, handle towards the viewer. His right arm is raised, as if directing the dancers. Side Β (lower): five komasts, one with frontal head. On the far left is a man moving to the right, but with his head turned back and down to the left. He has a himation over his shoulders (his left shoulder is missing) and holds a cup by its handle in his left hand (index finger pointed). He puts his right hand up to his thick reserved headband. To the right of him a man moves to the right, seen fully in profile, with a himation over his right upper arm and left shoulder. He holds a cup out in his right hand. His left hand is also outstretched, as if to catch any drips. In the centre a man with a himation round his shoulders moves to the left. He holds a skyphos in his left hand, which he seems to look down at with intense concentration, and holds up his right hand. His penis is infibulated. On the right a man moves away to the right, but looks back and down to the left, his torso frontal. He holds a black cup in his left hand and holds his right up in the air. On the far right a man moves to the left, a himation round his shoulders. His head is fully frontal. He holds a cup in his left hand by the foot (handle outwards) and his right hand reaches up to his thick headband. At either handle: floral complex with a circumscribed palmette either side of the handles and a pair of addorsed palmettes under the handles; spiral terminals and dots. Ground line: single reserved line. Relief line contour throughout (double for hair); dilute glaze for minor interior markings; reserved line inside and outside lip; inscriptions in added red. --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
Inscription: Inscription Type: inscription Inscription Script: Greek Inscription Position: Interior Inscription Language: Greek Inscription Content: HOΠAIΣ KALOΣ --The British Museum
View: Interior
Coverage: Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece (creation) Vulci, Lazio, Italy (discovery)
Temporal: 490-480 BCE
Subject: Book 6 Parallels Iliad Book 2-16
Style Period: Red-figure Attic (Mainland Greek pottery styles)
Work Type: cups (drinking vessels)
Date: -0490/-0480
Identifier: Lowenstam_VRC_00707
Item Locator: Box 2, Section 13
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: 37 cm Diameter: 29.1 cm Diameter: 19.2 cm (of tondo) Diameter: 10.9 cm (of exterior ground line)
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: 1843,1103.45