The Institute has recently acquired, through the Miscellaneous Purchase Fund, three vases made in Athens in the second half of the fifth century B.C. Formerly in the collection of the Earl of Elgin, all three are of the same shape, the lekythos, and were designed as vessels for holding oil. The best preserved of the vases (figure 1) is slightly less than nine inches in height, with a cylindrical body that tapers swiftly to a disc-like foot. The concave shoulder curves up to a narrow neck, and upon this rests a broad mouth, its sides convex in profile. In another curving line, the handle rises from the shoulder, then turns, and is fastened against the neck. These calculated and subtle curves, characteristic of Greek art, have been combined with a clear articulation of the several parts (for example, the groove between mouth and neck and the rounded moulding that separates the body from the foot) to produce a vessel that is one of the most familiar and satisfying creations of the Athenian potter. Developed over more than a century, the shape reached its final and accepted form in this example of about 430 B.C.The decoration of this vase is in the technique known as white-ground. Upon a whitened background the figures and the decorative border have been painted in golden brown and soft red, with certain details in black. Although some of the loveliest work by Greek painters was executed in this way, the technique is extremely perishable, and it is not uncommon to find examples in which the white surface has flaked away and the colors faded. However, in spite of the fugitive quality of the coloring, lekythoi decorated in white-ground were preferred for use as grave offerings in fifth-century Athens.The subject-matter of the decoration usually makes some reference to death, sometimes through the actual presence of Charon, the grim ferryman, or of Hermes, conductor of souls to Hades, or of Death himself. More often the allusion is less direct. A grave monument may occupy the center of the picture with a woman on one side bringing offerings of wreaths, fillets, or vessels of perfume, and on the other side a figure representing the deceased. Sometimes, as in the first of the Institute’s vases (figure 1 and 2), it is difficult to decide which figure is intended as the dead and which as the living. In the center of this vase is the grave stele, bound with fillets of wool. To the right is a young man, his body wrapped in a red cloak, extending his right hand, palm down, apparently in the direction of the woman, who stands to the left of the tomb, her head slightly inclined. Her body, drawn in outline, now appears nude, but was originally clothed with a garment which may have been red or purple. We are probably to think of her as the survivor, who has adorned the tomb with the woolen sashes. But it may be that the roles should be reversed, and that the youth’s hand is extended in a gesture of blessing and farewell. Of these scenes in general Sir John Beazley has said:“There are no tears on these vases: to be exact, in all the hundreds of lekythoi that have come down to us, there are only one or two weeping figures. Grief is not rendered by a distorted face, but by bended head, by gesture of hand or arm, by the attitude of the whole body.”¹The style of the painter of this vase has been recognized on other white-ground lekythoi. Twenty of these vases (three of which come from a single grave in one of the ancient cemeteries of Athens) have been grouped together by Professor Beazley, and the artist identified as the Bird Painter.² The second lekythos (figure 3) is also white-ground, but its figures and background are less well preserved.³ In the center of the picture is a fluted column on a broad plinth, with a plain rectangular block as its capital. Beside it sits a woman resting her feet on the plinth, as on a footstool, with a bird perched on her right hand. Facing her, from the other side of the column, is a man who wears a short cloak and a conical hat and holds two spears. As on many of the white lekythoi, it may be that the scene is taken from everyday life, with no allusion to death.The third lekythos (figure 4) is in red-figure, the standard technique for Attic vases in the fifth century. The figured areas are reserved in the red of the clay, and the background is filled in around them in lustrous black with details done in black line. Although they were occasionally placed in graves, red-figured lekythoi were for the service of the living rather than of the dead. In this vase there is a single figure, a dancing girl with a bracelet about each arm and a hand around her hair, holding her skirt with one hand and balancing a stick on the forefinger of the other. Beazley has placed this vase among those done in the manner of the Meidias Painter, who flourished toward the end of the fifth century B.C.⁴ The larger scenes of this painter and his followers often portray Athenian ladies in an atmosphere of luxury and ease, waited on by their maid servants, who fetch clothing, jewelry or perfume. On the lekythos in Minneapolis we recognize an isolated component of one of these many-figured compositions. A comparable subject can be found on a pyxis, or powder box, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, also in the manner of the Meidias Painter; here Aphrodite is portrayed seated on a chair, while her attendants bring her gifts.⁵ Among them is a girl, named Paidia (Play), who balances a stick on her finger. She is clearly a relative of the girl in the lekythos in Minneapolis. But even closer to the style of the Institute’s vase is a lekythos in the National Museum on Athens (figure 5), again with a single figure, a girl running with a wicker box in one hand and a necklace in the other.⁶ Common to them both is a wonderful sense of motion, conveyed by the rhythmic movements of the body and the fluid lines of the clothing.Endnotes

1. Sir John Beazley, Attic White Lekythoi, London, 1938, pp. 21-22.
2. Sir John Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, Oxford, 1942, p. 811. The Minneapolis vase is No. 5 on the list.
3. Burlington Fine Arts Club. Exhibition of Ancient Greek Art, London, 1904, p. 105, No. 33, and pl. 93; Fairbanks, Athenian White Lekythoi, Vol. II, New York, 1914, p. 34, No. 1a.
4. Beazley, op. cit., p. 839, No. 66.
5. Beazley, op. cit., p. 840, No. 86; Richter and Hall, Red-figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Haven, 1936, p. 159, No. 161.
6. National Museum, No. 13753; Beazley, op. cit., p. 839, No. 67. I am indebted to Mrs. Semni Karouzou of the National Museum for drawing my attention to this parallel. Mrs. Karouzou also kindly provided a photograph of the vase and gave permission to publish it.

Referenced Works of Art

1. Attic Lekythos, with maiden and youth, white-ground, 5th century B.C., 8 5/8” high, Miscellaneous Purchase Fund, 1957.
2. Attic Lekythos, with maiden and youth (detail).
3. Attic Lekythos, with woman holding a bird, white ground, 5th century B.C., 9 5/16” high, Miscellaneous Purchase Fund, 1957.
4. Attic Lekythos, with dancing girl, red-figured, 5th century B.C., 6 3/8” high, Miscellaneous Purchase Fund, 1957.
5. Attic Lekythos, red-figured, 5th century B.C., National Museum, Athens.