J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 43.

1966.34

Attic Black-GIaze Squat Lekythos

From the Woite Collection; probably from the area of Gela, Sicily. Ht 8.1cm; diam. 7cm.

Intact but the surface is worn. The outer surfaces are all painted but the underside is reserved.

A recurring pattern of Greek pottery production was the evolution from stout to slender shapes followed by radical remodelling in new stout forms when the evolution had gone far enough. The remodelling phase can occur as an overall change in taste that affected almost the whole range of production, but one also finds re-thinking of individual shapes that depend on individual situations. By the third quarter of the fifth century minor lekythoi, patterned and black, were thin and relatively unstable, and we find the broad-based squat lekythos growing in popularity. This is a good example of the squat lekythos at this stage - very wide at the base with curved body and sloping shoulder. Compare the red-figure example, G.M.A. Richter and M.J. Milne, Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases (New York, 1935) fig. 100. This version did not last long. It was soon narrowed and given more vertical sides and squared shoulder, and, during the fourth century, a progressively more elongated neck.

Compare the figured 1973.11, the black 1966.35 and the patterned 1965.11 in this catalogue.

About 430 BC. See Sparkes and Talcott, The Athenian Agora xii: Black and Plain Pottery 153 and pl. 38, 1121.

See 1966.01-1966.42 in this catalogue for all material from the Woite Collection in the ANU collection.

J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 43.