established 1942
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established 1942
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IMPORTANT ATTIC BLACK-FIGURE NECK AMPHORA On both sides, Gigantomachy: Athena attacks to the right, plunging the spear in her upraised right hand into the giant who kneels in front of her, probably Enkelados. Reverse: Similar, but Athena fights without shield. Ex Patricia Kluge collection, Charlottesville, Virginia, acquired from Royal-Athena in 1991. Ca. 520-510 BC H. with lid 20 1/2 in. (52 cm.) Art of the Ancient World, 2011, no. 107 1,000 Years of Ancient Greek Vases II, no. 39 PK0980K SOLD See Detail Images Below |
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Lotus and palmette chain on neck, with details in added red. Concentric stripes on the lid and a red stripe around the edge. Quatrefoils of palmettes and spiraling tendrils under the handles. A band of rays circles the lower body, with a band of lotus buds above. There are alternating red and black tongues on either side below the neck. Side A: The white-skinned Athena attacks to the right, plunging the spear in her upraised right hand into the giant who kneels in front of her. She wears a high-crested Attic helmet and a woolen peplos with incised stars and crinkly fold-lines. Her aegis is covered with incised scales and bordered with intertwined snakes. The muscles of her right arm are carefully incised. With her left hand, she pushes aside the shield of a second giant, who attacks from the right. He wears a short chiton, greaves, a scabbard, and a Corinthian helmet with low crest. His round shield has a red rim and a device in added white (much flaked) of a bronze tripod. His wounded comrade looks down, as though dying, a spear in his right hand and a shield in his left. The shield is foreshortened, revealing part of the interior; the added white of the device – a wreath of ivy – has flaked off. The falling giant wears greaves, scabbard, a high-crested Corinthian helmet, and a short kilt that leaves the torso bare. Side B: This scene is much like the obverse, with Athena wounding a giant, who falls between her and a second giant attacking from the right. The major differences are that the wounded giant falls backwards, supporting himself on his shield and raising his spear in self-defense, and that Athena carries a shield (foreshortened, with a device of two white dots). There are other, minor differences: Athena wears a bracelet; her aegis has red spots and the collar is smaller; her peplos has red stripes and straight folds. The wounded giant wears a bronze cuirass and his shield device is a tripod. The second giant is nude, and his shield device is a white leopard’s face. The battle between the gods and the giants had a long history in art and literature, being mentioned by Homer (Odyssey 7.59) and described by Hesiod (Theogeny 185). The giants were a savage race of warriors, the sons of Ge (earth) and Uranus. They battled the gods for control of the universe and were only beaten when Zeus turned his thunderbolts upon them. Athena was said to have killed the giant Enkelados, who is thus to be identified with the fallen giant on this vase. The defeated giants were buried under volcanoes in various parts of Greece and Italy, where local earthquakes were attributed to their rumblings. The battle, the so called Gigantomachy, was popular in art of all periods from the Archaic period on. In the 6th century B.C., it was represented in marble pediments on the temple of Apollo at Delphi, on the Peisistratid temple of Athena on the Athenian Acropolis, and on the Megarian treasury at Olympia. On the marble frieze from the Siphnian treasury at Delphi, Athena’s opponent is named Berektas. The Gigantomachy was especially popular on Attic black-figure vases, both in group compositions and in the form of individual duels, as on this vase. The subject continued on red-figure vases of the 5th and 4th centuries, in South Italy as well as Attica. For the Gigantomachy, see F. Vian, Repertoire des gigantomachies figures dans l’art grec et romain, Paris, 1951; F. Vian, La guerre des geants. Le mythe avant l’epoque hellenistique, Paris, 1952; J. Dorig and O. Gigon, Die Kampf der Gotter und Titanen, 1961; M.B. Moore, “Giants at the Getty,” Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 2, Malibu, 1985, 21-40; M.B. Moore, “Lydos and the Gigantomachy,” AJA 83, 1979, 78-99. See also LIMC IV, “Gigantes.” For the Gigantomachy in Archaic sculpture, see J. Boardman, Greek Sculpture: The Archaic Period, London, 1978, figs. 199, 203, 212, and 215. Repaired from large fragments and apparently complete. Parts of the right side of side B are misfired red. The lid may belong, though the diameter does not precisely match that of the rim. The shape is canonical: triple handles, echinus mouth, torus foot, black fillet between foot and body. The lid has a pomegranate knob. There are drips of glaze between the giant’s legs on Side B. |
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