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A vessel decorated with grasses and a worn-away figure

A vessel with a flat base and narrow body which connects to a tall fluted stem. It is painted in black and white. There is a tall looping handle which connects the neck to the body of the vessel. The middle portion of the vessel is painted white, while the top, bottom, and handle are black. In the white area there are painted plants which seem to be tall grasses or cornstalks. There is a black shape which may be a figures short robes, but the outlines of the figure are no longer visible.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1960.338
People
Group of Athens 1834
Title
Lekythos (oil flask): Charon
Classification
Vessels
Work Type
vessel
Date
450-400 BCE
Places
Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Attica
Period
Classical period, High
Culture
Greek
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/290776

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Terracotta
Technique
White-ground
Dimensions
38.6 x 11 cm (15 3/16 x 4 5/16 in.)

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Standard Reference Number
Beazley Archive Database #217890

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of David M. Robinson
Accession Year
1960
Object Number
1960.338
Division
Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact
am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
Charon, the ferryman of the dead, punts his boat over the river Styx. He wears a short black tunic and a traveller’s cap. The water beneath the boat is now a purple-red color but would originally have been blue. Tall reeds surround the boat.

Another, very poorly preserved, figure stands at the other edge of the scene. This might be interpreted as a representation of the deceased person that this vase is intended to commemorate, and who might be thought of as waiting for Charon to carry them over the river to the underworld.
Commentary
This vase is an example of a special type of Athenian vessel, the white-ground lekythos (oil flask). Unlike other Athenian pottery, which was regularly produced for export across the Mediterranean, and especially to Italy, white-ground lekythoi are only rarely found outside of Attica, the region surrounding Athens.

The white-ground decorative technique produces decoration which is much less stable than the red-figure or black-figure technique and is mostly used for vessels with funerary or ritual functions that do not demand heavy use. White ground lekythoi regularly feature decoration only on the front of the vessel, with the back left blank, and even decorative friezes extending only halfway around the vessel.

This type of vase was in common production from around 480 B.C.E. until towards the end of the fifth century. Its popularity in this period may be related to the absence of any private gravestones in Attica from around 490-80 to 430 B.C.E. Exactly why the Athenians stopped producing gravestones for half a century is not entirely clear, but the white-ground lekythos might be thought of as replicating some of the ritual and commemorative functions of a gravestone. A great many examples feature a representation of a grave monument.

These vases were designed to hold oil and seem to have been used in a number of different ways in funerary ritual: burned with the body in cremations, for pouring oil libations on the body or the grave site, and as offerings left at or in a burial. The great majority have been found in and around graves.

Accordingly, their painted decoration usually features scenes connected with funerary ritual or the mythology of the afterlife, and can give us some insight into ancient Athenian funerary practices and ideas about death. This vase illustrates a central Greek belief about the afterlife, that the ferryman Charon would escort the souls of the dead over the river Styx to the underworld.

On white-ground lekythoi in general, see:
J. D. Beazley, Greek Vases: Lectures by J. D. Beazley, ed. D. C. Kurtz (Oxford, 1989), pp. 26-38 with pll. 17-24.
John H. Oakley, Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi (Cambridge, 2004).

This vase, along with another lekythos in Berlin (F2683, BAPD 9022338), has been the subject of a chemical analysis of its purple-red pigmentation. This has demonstrated that the color results from a chemical reaction between a copper-based blue pigment and the white-ground slip, which was probably caused by exposure to fire. The analysis suggests that the vase was most likely ritually burned together with the body of the deceased during the process of cremation. The pattern of the coloration suggests that the vase was probably broken before being put onto the fire.

See further:
Marc S. Walton et al., “Material evidence for the use of Attic white-ground lekythoi ceramics in cremation burials,” Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010): pp. 936-40 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232393222_Material_Evidence_for_the_use_of_Attic_White-Ground_Lekythoi_Ceramics_in_Cremation_Burials

Publication History

  • Joseph Clark Hoppin and Albert Gallatin, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, U.S.A.: volume 1, Hoppin and Gallatin Collections, Libraire Ancienne Edouard Champion (Paris, 1926), pll. 43 & 46
  • J. D. Beazley, Review of Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: United States of America 4 = The Robinson Collection, Baltimore, Md., 1 by David Moore Robinson, Journal of Hellenic Studies (1934), 54, pp. 89-90, p. 90
  • Fogg Art Museum, The David Moore Robinson Bequest of Classical Art and Antiquities, A Special Exhibition, exh. cat., Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, 1961), p. 17, no. 97
  • J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1963), p. 1388, n. 1
  • Thomas Carpenter, Thomas Mannack, and Melanie Mendonca, ed., Beazley addenda : additional references to ABV, ARV² & Paralipomena, Oxford University Press (UK) (Oxford, 1989), p. 372
  • Sarah Jane Rennie, "The Identification of Original Decoration on a Collection of Attic White Ground Lekythoi" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1994), Unpublished, pp. 1-24 passim
  • Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), Artemis (Zürich, Switzerland, 1999), Charon I 44.
  • [Reproduction Only], Persephone, (Spring 2005).
  • Marc S. Walton, Marie Svoboda, Apurva Mehta, Sam Webb, and Karen Trentelman, Material evidence for the use of Attic white-ground lekythoi ceramics in cremation burials, Journal of Archaeological Science (2010), vol. 37, no. 5: pp. 936-40

Exhibition History

  • The David Moore Robinson Bequest of Classical Art and Antiquities: A Special Exhibition, Fogg Art Museum, 05/01/1961 - 09/20/1961

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu