2022.284: Pelike (jar): Mythical Easterner Fighting a Griffin

Identification and Creation

Object Number

2022.284

People

Group G

Title

Pelike (jar): Mythical Easterner Fighting a Griffin

Classification

Vessels

Work Type

vessel

Date

c. 350 BCE

Places

Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Attica

Period

Classical period, Late

Culture

Greek

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/377055

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Terracotta

Technique

Red-figure

Dimensions

H. 27.6 cm (10 7/8 in.)
Diam. of rim: 16.4 cm (6 7/16 in.)
Diam. of base: 9.7 cm (3 13/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin [1], Paris, (by 1890-1911), sold; to William A. Clark [2], New York, (by 1911-1925), bequest; to Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., (1926-2018) [3], transferred; to American University Museum, Washington, D.C., (2018-2021), sold; [through Sands of Time, Washington, D.C.]; to Harvard Art Museums, 2022.

1. Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (1850-1916)
2. William Andrews Clark (1839-1925)
3. Following the closure of the Corcoran Gallery in 2014, its collections were physically transferred to the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.); the Corcoran Board of Trustees retained ownership until the collections were officially transferred to and accessioned into other museums’ collections (in 2018, in this case).

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, David M. Robinson Fund

Accession Year

2022

Object Number

2022.284

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

The Harvard Art Museums encourage the use of images found on this website for personal, noncommercial use, including educational and scholarly purposes. To request a higher resolution file of this image, please submit an online request.

Descriptions

Description

This pelike, a two-handled jar with a baggy body, depicts a fight between a figure on horseback and a mythical creature, a lion-headed griffin. The griffin’s paws (now largely lost) reach toward and possibly dig into the body of the rearing stallion that opposes it. A shield with star motif appears in the field below. The rider wears a floppy cap and the sleeved top and trousers with lively patterns that had become the standard costume of easterners, both mythical and real, by the time this vessel was made. The figure’s gender is uncertain. If the face and hands were originally covered in added white, as with the griffin, it would be an Amazon. In Greek myth, it is the Arimasps, another eastern people, who fight griffins guarding gold at the far edges of the known world. Vessels of this type appear to show both Amazons and Arimasps grappling with griffins; as both were easterners in the Greek mind, the distinction may not have mattered much. The fact that many of these vessels were found in the northern Black Sea region suggests that the imagery was consciously employed by Athenian potters to target the market in an area associated with these legendary peoples—and that the actual local inhabitants embraced these depictions.

The back of the pelike shows two young men draped into copious cloaks. The vessel’s rim has been repaired and some of its decoration is lost.

Commentary

For recent discussions of jars with this iconography, see LANGNER.

Publication History

• Corcoran Gallery of Art, ed., Illustrated handbook of the W. A. Clark collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC, 1928), p. 124, no. 2686
• Corcoran Gallery of Art, ed., Illustrated handbook of the W.A. Clark Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC, 1932), p. 118, no. 2686
• Andrew Oliver Jr., Clark's Venture into Antiquity, The William A. Clark Collection: an exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the installation of the Clark Collection at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., April 26-July 16, 1978, ed. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC, 1978), 24-31, p. 27, fig. 19

Exhibition History

• Future Minded: New Works in the Collection, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 03/01/2024 - 07/21/2024

Verification Level