Revellers Vase

One side of the amphora: Three bearded men dance.

The other side: Hector dons his armor as his parents Priam and Hecuba watch.

The Revellers Vase is a Greek vase originating from the Archaic period. Painted around 510 BCE in the red-figure pottery style, the vase was found in an Etruscan tomb in Vulci, Italy. The painting is attributed to Euthymides. The vase is an amphora (a type of vessel normally used for storage), painted with two scenes: one depicts three nude partygoers, and the other the Trojan hero Hector arming for battle.

The work represents an early use of foreshortening and three-quarter views of figures in Greek vase-painting, breaking with earlier conventions of employing profile and frontal views. It was excavated in 1829 by Lucien Bonaparte from the Etruscan Tomb of the Cuccumella at Vulci in Italy, and is currently held in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Münich, Germany.

History

The Revellers Vase was painted by Euthymides, an Athenian vase-painter active during the Archaic period from c. 515 – c. 500 BCE. It is approximately 60 centimetres (24 in) in height, and is considered to have been executed around 510 BCE. Euthymides, along with other painters like Euphronios and Phintias, are known as the Pioneer Group because of their work with the newly invented red-figure style, in which the dark slip painted onto the vase was applied to the background, leaving the foreground rendered by the negative space in the natural color of the clay. This contrasted with the earlier black-figure technique, where the slip was used to paint the figures, and small details picked out by scratching it away. The work of the Pioneer Group was characterized by its interest in human anatomy and the use of dynamic, space-filling poses.

The vase was discovered in Vulci, in Italy (then part of the Papal States). It was excavated by Lucien Bonaparte (the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte), who excavated more than 3,000 Attic vases from Etruscan tombs on his estate near Vulci from 1828. Bonaparte found the vase in the sixth-century-BCE Tomb of the Cuccumella in March 1829. It is currently held by the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Münich, Germany, where it has an inventory number of 2307. In the ARV² indexing system developed by John Beazley, it has a number of 26,1, and it is numbered 200160 in the Beazley Archive Pottery Database.

Description

The vase is a Type A amphora, a vase-form favored by Euthymides. Two-handled amphorae, like the Revellers Vase, were typically used for the storage of wine, oil and other liquids and solids. One side of the vase shows three mostly nude male dancers (komasts) engaged in a komos, a wild and usually drunken ritual dance in honor of the god Dionysos, perhaps in the aftermath of an all-male drinking party known as a symposium. The left-most reveler holds a kantharos, a Greek drinking vessel. Two of the komasts are named as Eudemos and Teles, while the left-hand figure is labelled komarkhos, meaning "leader of the dance". All three wear floral crowns.

The vase is decorated with floral and geometric motifs on the handles and at the base, which frame the main scenes. On the opposite side to the revellers, the Trojan prince Hector is shown donning his armor before combat. He is watched by his parents, Priam and Hecuba. Hector, depicted frontally, wears a chiton (a form of tunic fastened at the shoulder), greaves and a cuirass, which he adjusts. A shield, decorated with the head of a faun, stands at his feet. Hecuba wears a chiton, a wreath and an epiblema-veil: the latter garment was traditionally associated with marriage, but often denoted mythological queens in vase-painting. She hands Hector his helmet and spear, and parts of her breast and leg can be seen through her clothing. There is a simple scratched graffito on the bottom of the foot. All of the figures in both scenes are labelled; these names, along with Hector's headband and some stripes on the vase, are executed in purple slip. Apart from Priam, all of the figures have the detail of their hair indicated by incision into the slip.

Drawing of the revellers scene by Karl Reichhold, showing the "As never Euphronios!" inscription written from top to bottom at far left

The vase includes an inscription, written by Euthymides in purple slip, along the left edge of the image of the komasts: "As never Euphronios" (ὡς οὐδέποτε Εὐφρόνιος; hos oudepote Euphronios). The inscription is generally interpreted as a taunt or challenge to Euphronios, who was Euthymides's contemporary and rival: both painters were familiar with each other's work, and as a claim that Euphronios could never equal the painting of the dancers. Gisela Richter specifically interpreted it as a reference to Euthymides's use of three-quarter views, in contrast with the front-on or side-on perspective universal in Euphronios's work. However, it has also been interpreted as more closely linked with the image, claiming instead that Euphronios had never taken part in a komos, perhaps because this was an aristocratic activity and Euphronios was of comparatively low social origin. Jenifer Neils states that the inscription has sometimes been interpreted as a show of "senile jealousy".

Artistic importance

Breaking with the traditionally rigid frontal postures of contemporary Archaic statues and paintings, the revellers are depicted in dynamic, overlapping postures. The art historian Jeffrey M. Hurwit has called the Revellers Vase the most important of Euthymides's six signed painted works. The art historian Mary B. Moore has emphasized the pathos of the image of Hector, suggesting that the intensity of his parents' gaze towards him indicates their knowledge that he will die in the Trojan War, and linked the vase with other contemporary works that use the heroes of the Trojan Cycle as vehicles for sympathy and tragedy.

External links

• "Beazley Archive 200160". Classical Art Research Centre. University of Oxford. Retrieved 2025-01-10. (Record and bibliography)

Bibliography

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