1977.216.2267: White ground Lekythos: Meeting at the Tomb

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1977.216.2267

People

Manner of The Achilles Painter, Greek (active c. 450-440 BCE)

Title

White ground Lekythos: Meeting at the Tomb

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/290799

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Terracotta

Technique

Underglazed, painted

Dimensions

37.4 cm (14 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Acquired by Henry W. Haynes, c. 1873-1878.
Bequest of Henry W. Haynes to the Department of the Classics, 1912.
Transfer from the Department of the Classics, 1977.

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

Standard Reference Number

Beazley Archive Database #214063

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Transfer from the Department of the Classics, Harvard University, Bequest of Henry W. Haynes, 1912

Accession Year

1977

Object Number

1977.216.2267

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Descriptions

Description

On the shoulder: egg and dart pattern above three palmettes with alternating red and black petals.

On the body: in the center, there is a gravestone on a two-stepped platform with a crowning ornament of scrolls, acanthus leaves and palmettes which invades the top border. A series of red fillets are tied around the gravestone. Two small circular objects are suspended in the air; might be mirrors or libation bowls (phialai).

On the left there is a woman who approaches the tomb carrying a plemochoe (a distinctive type of vessel for perfumed oil) in her right hand and a fillet in her left. She wears her hair tied up by a red fillet, and she would have worn a red robe but only a few traces remain.

On the right, there stands a young man with brown hair in a yellow tunic (chiton) and red cloak (chlamys). His right hand rests on the gravestone and his left holds up a long spear. His traveller’s cap (petasos) and scabbard are partially visible behind him. His shield rests in side view against the gravestone.

A band of meander pattern decorates the top of the body.

The vase has been broken and mended extensively, with some overpainting.

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 scene shows a visit to the grave by the family of the deceased. Sometimes scenes of this kind will include a figure who seems to represent the dead individual; in this case we might imagine that the warrior represents the deceased, although it is not possible to make identifications like this with any certainty.

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).

Publication History

• George H. Chase and Mary Zelia Pease, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, U.S.A.: volume 8, Fogg Museum and Gallatin Collections, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1942), p. 40, pl. 22.1a-b
• J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1963), 1003.26
• 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
• John Oakley, The Achilles Painter (Mainz, 1997)

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