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31. Teemessa covering body of Ajax

Description: He must not be seen! I will cover his body, I will wrap him completely in my mantle. No one who loved him could bear to see the dark blood pouring from his nostrils and the raw wound in his breast. So declared Tekmessa when she discovered the body of her dead lover Ajax in an Athenian tragedy by the playwright Sophokles. Ajax was one of the greatest of the Greek heroes in the Trojan War. The matter of his suicide was recounted in epic poetry now lost to us, but Athenian vase-painters in the early 400s B.C. frequently drew on this tradition in showing his death. The interior of this red-figure cup attributed to the Brygos Painter shows Ajax impaled on his sword and Tekmessa running to cover the body. In a unique representation of the suicide, the sword enters through his back rather than the more natural position through the stomach. Beneath Ajax, the Brygos Painter attempted to convey the texture of the pebble beach where Ajax went to die. The exterior of the cup presents the events leading to Ajax's suicide. When Achilles was killed, Ajax saved his body from the Trojans, expecting to be rewarded with Achilles' armor. However, Odysseus also claimed the armor. One side of this cup shows the two heroes quarreling; on the other side, the Greek leaders cast votes in the form of stones piled in front of the opponents. The despondent Ajax clutches his bowed head, having lost by one vote. --J. Paul Getty Museum; Bareiss Loan Number: S.82.AE.27

32. Love-Making

Description: Dorig, Jose, ed. Art Antique. Collections Privees de Suisse Romande. Exh, cat., Musee d'art et d'histoire, Geneve. Editions archeologiques de l'Universite de Geneve: 1975. cat. no. 205; figs. 205a-e.; Buitron, Diana. Douris. Ph.D. diss., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University: 1976. p. 48, no. 36.; "Acquisitions/1984." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 13 (1985), pp. 168-169, no. 19.; Kurtz, D. C. "Two Athenian White-ground Lekythoi," Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 4. Occasional Papers in Antiquities 5 (1989). pp. 113-130. figs. 1a-e; Immerwahr, Henry. Attic Script. A Survey. Oxford and New York: 1990. p. 85 (no cat. number); The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 3rd ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991), p. 48.; Buitron-Oliver, Diana. Douris: A Master-Painter of Athenian Red-Figure Vases. Kerameus 9. Mainz: P. von Zabern, 1995. pp. 18, 44, 51-53, 64-65, and 75, cat. no. 45; p. 95, fig. 6E; pls. 28-29.; The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 4th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 47.; Towne Markus, Elana. Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: Antiquities. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997) p. 37.; Immerwahr, Henry. R. A Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions. Preliminary Edition. Part VI: Supplement. 2001. no. 4978.; The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), p. 47.; The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Antiquities Collection (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002) p. 70.; Cohen, Beth, ed. The Colors of Clay: Special Techniques in Athenian Vases, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006) pp. 213-215, cat. no. 58, figs. 58.1-58.3.; The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 7th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), p. 29, ill.; Green, Christopher, and Jens M. Daehner. Modern Antiquity: Picasso, de Chirico, Leger, and Picabia (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011) 46, 152, no. 6; pl. 8 , On the interior of this Athenian red-figure kylix or cup, a seated youth pulls his older male lover down toward him for a kiss. In Athenian aristocratic circles in the Archaic period, older men often courted youths. Such homosexual relationships were viewed as a key element in the socialization of youths, involving strong elements of mentoring as well as eroticism. The exterior of the cup depicts youths and bearded men training in various athletic activities, including the javelin, discus, and long jump. The youth in the long robe playing the flutes provides music for the training. Greek vases of the Archaic period frequently depict favorite pursuits of the aristocratic patrons who used the vessels; scenes of athletic training, another key element in the socialization of Athenian youths, are among the most common.--J.Paul Getty Museum