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| ETRUSCAN BLACK-FIGURE PANEL AMPHORA Bearded male head/ Youthful male head. Added red bands around neck & body. Published: J. Eisenberg, One Thousand Years of Ancient Greek Vases, 1990, no. 179. Ex Patricia Kluge collection, Charlottesville, Virginia, acquired form Royal-Athena in 1991. Ca. 550-540 BC H. 14 1/4 in. (36.2 cm.) Art of the Ancient World, 2011, no. 136 1,000 Years of Ancient Greek Vases II, no. 185 PK0969K $85,000 Sales |
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The lower body is reserved and decorated with three black stripes. Above this reserved area is a pair of red stripes; two other pairs circle the neck and body (below the panels). There is a single red stripe above each panel, which are framed on four sides with black stripes. Side A: The panel is filled by a large head of a bearded man facing right. The heavy beard is red, as is the hair below the red fillet; that above the fillet is black (it is unlikely he is wearing a black scull-cap). The moustache is also red, but does not connect with the beard. The nose is pointed, with curiously stylized nostrils. A hooked line marks the canthus of the eye; the iris is painted red. The mouth is open and the teeth visible. The ear lobe is impossibly long and pointed. The long hair on the nape is bound in a cloth or net. Side B: A large head of a youth facing right fills the panel. Like the older male, the hair is red below the red fillet and black above. A single long tress hangs in front of the ear. The long hair on the nape is bound at ear level by a single band with a red zigzag. The eye has a red iris but lacks the hooked canthus of the man’s eye. The ear is similar to the man’s but the lobe is shorter. The narrow chin protrudes almost as far as the pointed nose. The dotted circle in the field is merely a space filler. This is a curious vase; it is undoubtedly ancient, though we know of no exact parallels. Large heads set in the reserved panels of amphoras, either singly or in pairs, are found in both Attic and Corinthian vase paintings of the late 7th and early 6th centuries B.C. Partly because of their size, the features of such heads often appear schematic and out of proportion. Beards and hair are frequently painted with added red, and the hair is long and bound up in various ways. The Attic and Corinthian figure styles are usually distinguishable, but the painter of these heads was neither Athenian nor Corinthian. In the first half of the 6th century, when Attic vases took over the lucrative Italian export market from the Corinthians, Corinthian vase-painters began imitating the Attic style. Belly amphoras with the figure decoration set within reserved panels were an Attic type, but the Corinthian imitations are distinctly different in shape, with narrower necks and more flaring handles. Some of these have large heads in one or both panels, a direct imitation of an Attic type. The distinctive drawing of these two heads finds no parallels in either Attic or Corinthian. It was to Etruria that both Corinth and Athens sent most of their exports. The Etruscans had long imitated earlier Corinthian vases, producing the vases we refer to as Etrusco-Corinthian and the works of the late 6th century Etruscan vase-painters, such as the Micali Painter, that this vase was produced. The shape is Attic, as is the inspiration for the design. Other features, such as the red stripes around the neck, are paralleled on Corinthian amphoras, but not the stripes on the lower body or the lack of ornament above the panels. For another example of an Etruscan imitation of the Attic shape, cf. Stockholm, Medelhavsmuseet 1964.19; Eva Rystedt, Grekisk Keramik (Stockholm 1985) 30, fig. 28c. Attic amphoras with single or paired heads begin on Protoattic examples of the 7th century, when they are drawn in outline technique instead of black-figure; cf. a late 7th-century example in Munich: A. Lane, Greek Pottery, N.Y., 1949, pl. 32. There are many black-figure examples; e.g. Copenhagen 13796; Paralipomena, 8. For a Middle Corinthian example, cf. H. Payne, Necrocorinthia, Oxford, 1931, 316, pl. 35,3. For Late Corinthian examples, see Payne, Necrocorinthia 326-27; cf. also Sotheby’s, London, March 5, 1962, no. 102. Unbroken and in good condition. The shape copies that of an Attic black-figure panel amphora, the only significant difference being the mouth, which is smaller than most Attic examples and lacks their crisp angularity. The foot is an echinus. |
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