1968.25

Attic White-Ground Lekythos

Purchased; formerly in the Elgin collection. Ht 28cm; diam. 9cm.

Reconstructed from fragments but without repainting; the scene is worn.

On the body, in delicate dilute glaze outline, a grave stele with red sashes tied about it, with a boy on the left and a young woman on the right. The boy wears a pale vermilion himation and has a stick in his left hand. Only the head of the girl can be made out. Above the scene is a band of stopped meander. On the shoulder is a palmette design drawn in matt black with alternate leaves of the palmettes red; above, at the offset from the neck, a band of egg pattern. The mouth is painted inside and out but the top of the lip is reserved. There are scraped grooves about the fillet between body and foot. The vertical face of the foot and the underside are reserved. All the reserved areas are strongly reddened.

This lekythos is taller and more cylindrical than the black-figure versions 1965.16 and 1962.02, and it gave the painter a simpler surface to work on. The body of the vase is covered with a slip of white clay (containing no iron oxide) and on this the drawing is done in outline with dilute paint which has fired to a yellowish brown. The red is added afterwards and, as often, the lines of the drawing can be seen running under it. In later lekythoi the drawing was done in matt paint: compare the shoulder decoration here.

The lekythos became a standard grave offering, and white-ground lekythoi became particularly popular in the latter half of the fifth century (the technique with its fugitive colours was suited to a purpose where it would not have to withstand continual use). This is reflected not only in the subject represented but also in a sly feature of the vase construction. Since the offering of oil was a mark of respect for the dead, the vase had to appear full, but a large vase full of oil was presumably considered a waste or too expensive, and so a small container was concealed inside the body of the lekythos, attached to its neck, and this inner container only held a few spoonsful of oil, enough for a token offering at the grave. Since the inner container sealed off the main part of the inside of the vase, a hole had to be made somewhere to let the air escape during firing and this is often placed, as it is here, unobtrusively on the shoulder near the lower root of the handle.

This lekythos has been attributed to the Thanatos Painter, so called from a vase in the British Museum showing Thanatos (Death) and Hypnos (Sleep) carrying off a dead man (J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (2nd ed., Oxford 1963) 1228, 12; P. Arias and M. Hirmer (trans. and rev. B. Shefton), A History of Greek Vase Painting (London 1963) pl. 184; D.C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi (Oxford 1975) pl. 32, 4;  https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_obje... Beazley Archive Pottery Database 216353) with its uncouth and rather frightening representation of Death. It is an usually large lekythos (ht 480.8cm) and one of four pieces by the painter in that collection. He was a pupil of the Achilles Painter and a specialist in such lekythoi. See Beazley, Attic White Lekythoi (Oxford 1938) 18-19 and Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (2nd ed., Oxford 1963) 1228-1231, F. Felten, Thanatos- und Kleophonmaler. Weissgrundige und rot-figurige Vasenmalerei der Parthenonzeit (Munich 1971), D.C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi (Oxford 1975) 38-41, M. Robertson, The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens (Cambridge 1992) 203-5, and O.E. Tzachou-Alexandri, “Ο Ζωγράφος του Θανάτου στο Εθνικό Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο”, Το Μουσείο 3, 2002-2003 [2005], 115-158. Close parallels for the drawing of our figures will be found, for instance, on the lekythos Athens 1993, Felten 92 fig. 2, and the lekythos Boston 00.359, Felten 93 figs.3-4, Kurtz pl. 32, 1 where the treatment of the girl’s hair is virtually identical.

J.H. Oakley, The Achilles Painter (Mainz 1997) 106-107, notes that he was active between about 445 and 430 BC (thus roughly coinciding with the construction of the Parthenon) and that he seems to have received his initial training in the workshop of the Achilles Painter, the greatest of all painters of white lekythoi and a direct pupil of the Berlin Painter. He then seems to have set up shop independently. Oakley also regards the Thanatos Painter as one of the great painters of white lekythoi, not unjustly.

There is nowadays a large bibliography on these vases. Old but still useful, especially for the illustrations, are A. Fairbanks, Athenian White Lekythoi, i–ii (New York 1907 and 1914) and W. Riezler, Weissgrundige attische Lekythen (Munich 1914). J.D. Beazley’s Attic White Lekythoi (Oxford 1938) (= D.C. Kurtz [ed.], Greek Vases: Lectures by J.D. Beazley [Oxford 1989] 26–38) remains an outstanding discussion and synthesis. Among more recent work, one may single out D.C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi: Patterns and Painters (Oxford 1975) and J.H. Oakley, Picturing Death in Classical Athens: the Evidence of the White Lekythoi (Cambridge 2004); in the last see p. 8 for inner containers, chapter 5, 145-214 for scenes at the grave, with 191ff for the form of the grave monument. On inner containers, see also C.H.E. Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekythoi (Paris 1936) 176-178; Beazley, Journal of Hellenic Studies 66, 1946, 11 n. 3-4; D. von Bothmer, Ancient Art from New York Private Collections (New York 1961) 60-61, nos 239-240, pl. 88, 92; Boulter, Hesperia 32, 1963, 123-124, fig. 4, pl. 43; J.V. Noble, Techniques of Attic Vase-Painting (London 1988) 24-25.

On the scenes on white-ground lekythoi, see also S. Schmidt, “Zur Funktion der Bilder auf weissgrundigen Lekythen”, in: Bernhard Schmaltz and Magdalene Söldner (eds), Griechische Keramik im kulturellen Kontext. Akten des Internationalen Vasen-Symposions in Kiel vom 24.-28.9.2001 (Münster 2003) 179-181, and his Rhetorische Bilder auf attischen Vasen: Visuelle Kommunikation im 5. Jahrhundert v.Chr. (Berlin 2005) 29–79 (‘Lekythen und ihre Verwendung bei Begräbnissen’) together with a list of key burials at 293–299; N.T. Arrington, “Fallen Vessels and Risen Spirits: Conveying the Presence of the Dead on White-Ground Lekythoi”, in: J.H. Oakley (ed.), Athenian Potters and Painters III (Oxford 2014) 1-10 (Thanatos Painter at page 5 and colour-plate 2a).

There is a fine publication of the white-ground lekythoi in the Berlin collection in Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Berlin 12 (where pl. 25, 1-4, is a piece by the Thanatos Painter). Other usefully published collections include R. Olmos Romera, Catalogo de los vasos griegos en el Museo arqeologico nacional. I. Los lecitos aticos de fondo bianco (Madrid 1980), and Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum Munich 15 (Thanatos Painter in the latter at pl. 40, 1-3, pl. 42, 1-5, pl. 42, 6-8 (colour).

On inner containers: C.H.E. Haspels, Attic Black-Figured Lekythoi (Paris 1936) 176-178; Beazley, Journal of Hellenic Studies 66, 1946, 11 n. 3-4; D. von Bothmer, Ancient Art from New York Private Collections (New York 1961) 60-61, nos 239-240, pl. 88, 92; Boulter, Hesperia 32, 1963, 123-124, fig. 4, pl. 43; J.V. Noble, The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery (London 1966) 24-25. Compare the note on miniature vases: see Sicilian Black, Banded and Plain, elsewhere in this catalogue.

On the Elgin collection, to which this vase once belonged, see P. Hunt and A.H. Smith, “Lord Elgin and his Collection”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 36, 1916, 163-372 (see pp. 261-262 for vases shown at the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition).

Burlington Fine Arts Club: Exhibition of Ancient Greek Art (1903) pl. 93, H 31; J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (2nd ed., Oxford 1963) 1230, 33; J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U., Canberra, 1981, 37-38.