86.AE.208 and 86.AE.210, fragments from shoulder and body of vessel (at left: 86.AE.210; at right: 86.AE.208)
Download image
Two pottery fragments, one showing a person's head and some decoration, the other showing a person's body, some decoration, and another object
86.AE.208 and 86.AE.210, interior view of fragments from shoulder and body of vessel (at left: 86.AE.210; at right: 86.AE.208)
Download image
The back side of the two pottery fragments
Scroll down to read more

10.

Plate 537

Accession Numbers 86.AE.208 and 86.AE.210

View in Collection

Download PDF

Provenance

By 1969–83, Walter and Molly Bareiss (Bareiss number 379); 1983–86, the Mary S. Bareiss 1983 Trust; 1986, sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Shape and Ornament

Two non-joining body fragments, one (86.AE.210) preserving part of the shoulder. Figural decoration on the body set in a panel framed by a tongue pattern on the shoulder below the junction with the neck, and a double row of black ivy leaves between black lines at the sides. Interior of 86.AE.208 black (dilute), 86.AE.210 black body, shoulder plain.

View all profile drawings ↗

Subject

Dionysiac scene: maenads flanking an image (xoanon) of Dionysos.

On 86.AE.210 are preserved the head, the right shoulder, and part of the right arm of a maenad. She wears a chiton and has light-colored hair. Her head and hair are thrown back as if in a pose of Bacchic ecstasy. The lower part of the image of Dionysos is preserved on fragment 86.AE.208. It is decorated with a necklace that has alternating black and white beads, popana (cakes), grapes, and a flower. A second maenad (most of her head and shanks missing) stands to the right of the image. She is dressed in a dotted chiton with long sleeves and dances to the left with extended arms. Her left hand and foot extend into the frame. Toward the bottom of the fragment, before the image of Dionysos, is preserved the left edge of a table that is normally laden with offerings in similar scenes.

Attribution and Date

Attributed to the Group of Undetermined Mannerists by D. von Bothmer. Circa 475–450 B.C.

Dimensions and Condition

86.AE.208: Maximum preserved dimension 14.9 cm; mended from four fragments. 86.AE.210: Maximum preserved dimension 10.5 cm; mended from two fragments.

Technical Features

Preliminary sketch. Relief contour. Accessory color. White: flower, grapes, beads on xoanon. Dilute glaze: back side of the fragments, hair of maenad, some dots on the chiton of 86.AE.210. Grapes rendered by relief dots on black background.

Bibliography

Greek Vases and Modern DrawingsGreek Vases and Modern Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bareiss. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, June 13–October 5, 1969. Entries by D. von Bothmer and J. Bean. New York, 1969, p. 4, no. 46 (69.11.80); “Acquisitions/1986,” GettyMusJThe J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 15 (1987): 160–61, no. 7.

Loan

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Greek Vases and Modern Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bareiss, June 13–October 5, 1969.

Comparanda

For the Group of Undetermined Mannerists, see Mannack, Late ManneristsT. Mannack. The Late Mannerists in Athenian Vase-Painting. Oxford, 2001.

The scene belongs to a series of so-called Lenaia vases, which date to the fifth century B.C. They represent women participating in a ritual involving wine and a cult image of Dionysos consisting of a bearded mask hung on a trunk or pillar. A garment wound about the column indicates the body, although there are no arms or legs. The scene has been associated with two Dionysian festivals, the Anthesteria and the Lenaia. The Lenaia vases are mostly stamnoi; the krater is not a common shape for this scene. The series of stamnoi starts with the Villa Giulia Painter and continues with his follower the Chicago Painter. Cf. two other Attic red-figure kraters with this theme, although the image is rendered in profile: a fragment from a volute-krater in Sydney, Nicholson Museum 56.33 (Frontisi-Ducroux, Le dieu-masqueF. Frontisi-Ducroux. Le dieu-masque: Une figure du Dionysos d’Athènes. Images à l’appui 4. Paris and Rome, 1991, pp. 142–43, 248, no. L57, fig. 80); a column-krater by the Leningrad Painter in Milan, Banca Intesa Sanpaolo 316 (BAPDBeazley Archive Pottery Database. http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk 10413; ARV2J. D. Beazley. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1963 569.40; Frontisi-Ducroux, Le dieu-masqueF. Frontisi-Ducroux. Le dieu-masque: Une figure du Dionysos d’Athènes. Images à l’appui 4. Paris and Rome, 1991, pp. 145–46, 249, no. L59, figs. 83–84).

The Lenaia identification was first suggested by A. Frickenhaus, Lenäenvasen, Winckelmannsprogramm der archäologischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin (BWPr) 72 (Berlin, 1912), and followed by L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932). On the identification as the Anthesteria, see W. Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, trans. from German by P. Bing (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 230–38. M. Dillon, in Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion (London, 2002), pp. 149–52, comes to the same conclusion.

For a summary of the debate about the festive occasion for the cultic display of the image, see Frontisi-Ducroux, Le dieu-masqueF. Frontisi-Ducroux. Le dieu-masque: Une figure du Dionysos d’Athènes. Images à l’appui 4. Paris and Rome, 1991, pp. 17–63, where she argues that the ritual scenes on the vases evoke the cultic presence of Dionysos as “le dieu-masque” without referring to a specific festival, and pp. 8–9, where she argues for an interpretation of those cultic masks of Dionysos on Lenaia vases as objects of worship unparalleled outside the Attic cult of the god. See also Bundrick, Music and ImageS. D. Bundrick. Music and Image in Classical Athens. Cambridge, 2005, pp. 157–58, for an overview of the discussion on the subject. More recently, see G. Hedreen, “Unframing the Representation: The Frontal Face in Athenian Vase-Painting,” in The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History, ed. V. Platt and M. Squire (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 161–63.

For the subject, see also J.-L. Durand and F. Frontisi-Ducroux, “Idoles, figures, images: Autour de Dionysos,” RARevue archéologique (1982): 81–108; Simon, Die Götter der GriechenE. Simon. Die Götter der Griechen. Darmstadt, 1985, pp. 276–79; F. Frontisi-Ducroux, “Image du ménadisme feminin: Les vases des ‘Lénéennes,’” in L’association dionysiaque dans les sociétés anciennes (Rome, 1986), pp. 165–76; Schöne, ThiasosA. Schöne. Der Thiasos: Eine ikonographische Untersuchung über das Gefolge des Dionysos in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jhs. v. Chr. Göteborg, 1987, pp. 307–12; Frontisi-Ducroux, Le dieu-masqueF. Frontisi-Ducroux. Le dieu-masque: Une figure du Dionysos d’Athènes. Images à l’appui 4. Paris and Rome, 1991; C. Isler-Kerényi, review of ibid., Gnomon 66 (1994): 44–51; N. Robertson, “Athens’ Festival of the New Wine,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 95 (1993): 197–250, esp. 228–31, 234–38; O. Tzachou-Alexandri, “Apeikoniseis tōn Anthestēriōn kai o chous tēs odou Peiraiōs tou zōgraphou tēs Eretrias,” in Athenian Potters and PaintersAthenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings. 3 vols. Vol. 1, edited by J. H. Oakley, W. D. E. Coulson, and O. Palagia. Oxbow Monograph 67. Vol. 2, edited by J. H. Oakley and O. Palagia. Vol. 3, edited by J. H. Oakley. Oxford, 1997 (vol. 1), 2009 (vol. 2), 2014 (vol. 3), vol. 1, pp. 480–82. See also E. Simon, Festivals of Attica (Madison, 1983), pp. 92–101; J. H. Oakley, The Phiale Painter (Mainz, 1990), pp. 35–36; R. Hamilton, Choes and Anthesteria: Athenian Iconography and Ritual (Ann Arbor, 1992), pp. 134–38, 142–46; E. Fantham et al., “Women in Classical Athens: Heroines and Housewives,” in Women in the Classical World: Image and Text (New York and Oxford, 1994), pp. 88–90; McNiven, “Things to Which We Give Service,”T. J. McNiven. “Things to Which We Give Service: Interactions with Sacred Images on Athenian Pottery.” In An Archaeology of Representations: Ancient Greek Vase-Painting and Contemporary Methodologies, edited by D. Yatromanolakis, pp. 298–324. Athens, 2009 pp. 310–15.

Carpenter, Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century AthensT. H. Carpenter. Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens. Oxford, 1997, pp. 79–82, suggests that the Lenaia stamnoi were decorated with nonspecific Dionysian scenes composed of stock Dionysian elements. Carpenter recognizes the women as nymphs in idem, “Greek Religion and Art,” in A Companion to Greek Religion, ed. D. Ogden (Malden, MA, 2010), pp. 415–16. S. Pierce, “Visual Language and Concepts of Cult on the ‘Lenaia Vases,’” Classical Antiquity 17 (1998): 59–95, esp. 85, recognizes the women as mortals participating in Dionysian cult activities rather than specific festivals. S. Chryssoulaki, “The Participation of Women in the Worship and Festivals of Dionysos,” in Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens, ed. N. Kaltsas and H. A. Shapiro (New York, 2008), pp. 273–75, also recognizes the scene as the participation of woman in Dionysiac rituals. J. de la Genière, “Vases des Lénéennes?,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Antiquité 99 (1987): 43–61, suggests that the subject was created for the Etruscan market.

The garment worn by the idol is unusual. The horizontal lines suggest it was wrapped around the image. For the type of chiton normally worn by these idols, see M. Jameson, “The Asexuality of Dionysus,” in Masks of DionysusMasks of Dionysus. Edited by T. H. Carpenter and C. A. Faraone. Ithaca, N.Y., 1993, pp. 50–51. For ritual textiles used to adorn the cult image of Dionysos, see C. Brøns, “Power through Textiles: Women as Ritual Performers in Ancient Greece,” in Women’s Ritual Competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, ed. M. Dillon, E. Eidinow, and L. Maurizio (London and New York, 2016), p. 56. For the image (the horizontal lines are rare), see B. Alroth, “Changing Modes in the Representation of Cult Images,” in The Iconography of Greek Cult in the Archaic and Classical Periods: Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Ancient Greek Cult, Delphi, 16–18 November 1990, Kernos, Supplement 1 (Athens and Liège, 1992), pp. 9–46. On the frontality of the xoanon, see T. Banndorff, “Die Frontalität in der griechischen Flächenkunst” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1969).

Interesting are the round cakes often decorating the idol (twigs and fruits are also common): cf. a cup by Makron in Berlin, Antikensammlungen F 2290 (ARV2J. D. Beazley. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1963 462.48; ParalipomenaJ. D. Beazley. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. Oxford, 1971 377; Beazley Addenda2Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2 & Paralipomena. 2nd ed. Compiled by T. H. Carpenter with T. Mannack and M. Mendonça. Oxford, 1989 244; CVACorpus Vasorum Antiquorum Berlin, Antiquarium 2 [Germany 21], pls. 87–89); a stamnos by the Dinos Painter in Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale 2419 (ARV2J. D. Beazley. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1963 1151.2; ParalipomenaJ. D. Beazley. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. Oxford, 1971 457; Beazley Addenda2Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2 & Paralipomena. 2nd ed. Compiled by T. H. Carpenter with T. Mannack and M. Mendonça. Oxford, 1989 336; PandoraPandora: Women in Classical Greece. Exh. cat. Walters Art Gallery. Edited by E. D. Reeder. Baltimore, 1995, pp. 385–87, cat. no. 124, entry by E. Reeder), with a large oval attachment, thought to be a cake, flanking each ear.

For maenads with hands covered by the sleeves of a chiton, see Schöne, ThiasosA. Schöne. Der Thiasos: Eine ikonographische Untersuchung über das Gefolge des Dionysos in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jhs. v. Chr. Göteborg, 1987, pp. 152–56. Cf. a stamnos by the Deepdene Painter, Warsaw 142351 (ARV2J. D. Beazley. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1963 499.10; C. Gaspari, in LIMCLexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 1981–2009, vol. 3 [1986], pt. 1, p. 427, no. 38, s.v. “Dionysos”); a white-ground pyxis by the Sotheby Painter in Baltimore, Walters Art Museum 48.2019 (ARV2J. D. Beazley. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1963 774-5.1; Beazley Addenda2Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2 & Paralipomena. 2nd ed. Compiled by T. H. Carpenter with T. Mannack and M. Mendonça. Oxford, 1989 287; CVACorpus Vasorum Antiquorum Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery 1 [USA 28], pls. 59–60); a pelike by an undetermined Earlier Mannerist in London, British Museum E 362 (ARV2J. D. Beazley. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1963 585.34; T. Carpenter, “On the Beardless Dionysus,” in Masks of DionysusMasks of Dionysus. Edited by T. H. Carpenter and C. A. Faraone. Ithaca, N.Y., 1993, pp. 192–93, figs. 10a–d).

The iconography on maenads is immense; see selectively J. D. Beazley, “A Dancing Maenad,” BSABritish School at Athens Annual 30 (1928–30): 109–12; M. W. Edwards, “Representation of Maenads on Archaic Red-Figure Vases,” JHSJournal of Hellenic Studies 80 (1960): 78–87; S. McNally, “The Maenad in Early Greek Art,” Arethousa 11 (1978): 101–36; A. Henrichs, “Greek Maenadism from Olympias to Messalina,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 82 (1978): 121–60; M. C. Villanueva-Puig, “À propos d’une ménade aux sangliers sur une oenochoé à figures noires du British Museum: Notes sur le bestiare dionysiaque,” RARevue archéologique (1983): 229–58; J. Bremmer, “Greek Maenadism Reconsidered,” ZPEZeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 55 (1984): 267–86; E. C. Keuls, “Male-Female Interaction in Fifth-Century Dionysiac Ritual as Shown in Attic Vase-Painting,” ZPEZeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 55 (1984): 287–97; S. McNally, “The Maenad in Early Greek Art,” in Women in the Ancient World, ed. J. Peradotto and J. P. Sullivan (Albany, N.Y., 1984), pp. 107–42; Carpenter, Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek ArtT. H. Carpenter. Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art: Its Development in Black-Figure Vase Painting. Oxford, 1985, pp. 76–97; Carpenter, Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century AthensT. H. Carpenter. Dionysian Imagery in Fifth-Century Athens. Oxford, 1997, pp. 52–69, 121; E. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus (New York, 1985), pp. 357–79; C. Bron, “Porteurs de thyrse ou bacchants,” in Images et société en Grèce ancienne: L’iconographie comme méthode d’analyse, Cahiers d’archaéologie romande 36 (Lausanne, 1987), pp. 145–53; A. Henrichs, “Myth Visualized: Dionysos and His Circle in Sixth-Century Vase-Painting,” in Papers on the Amasis Painter and His World, ed. M. True (Malibu, 1987), pp. 92–124; Schöne, ThiasosA. Schöne. Der Thiasos: Eine ikonographische Untersuchung über das Gefolge des Dionysos in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jhs. v. Chr. Göteborg, 1987, pp. 89–198; E. Keuls, “The Conjugal Side of Maenadism as Revealed by Fifth-Century Monuments,” in Praktika tou 12ou Diethnous Synedriou Klasikēs Archaiologias, Athens, 4–10 September, 1983, vol. 2 (Athens, 1988), pp. 98–102; F. W. Hamdorf, “Dionysos und sein Gefolge,” in Kunst der SchaleKunst der Schale, Kultur des Trinkens: Ausstellung der attischen Kleinmeisterschalen des 6. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Edited by K. Vierneisel, B. Kaeser, and B. Fellmann. Munich, 1990, pp. 373–85; idem, “Satyrn und Mänaden,” in Kunst der SchaleKunst der Schale, Kultur des Trinkens: Ausstellung der attischen Kleinmeisterschalen des 6. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Edited by K. Vierneisel, B. Kaeser, and B. Fellmann. Munich, 1990, pp. 394–400; B. Immenhauser, “Mänaden als Begleiterinnen des Apollon: Dionysisches und Apollonisches auf einer spat-schwarzfigurigen attischen Olpe in Bern,” in Hefte des Archäologischen Seminars der Universität Bern 14 (1991): 5–9; M. C. Villanueva-Puig, “Les représentations de ménades dans la céramique attique à figures rouges de la fin de l’archaïsme,” REARevue des études anciennes 94 (1992): 125–54; G. Hedreen, “Silens, Nymphs, and Maenads,” JHSJournal of Hellenic Studies 114 (1994): 47–69; C. Benson, “Maenads,” in PandoraPandora: Women in Classical Greece. Exh. cat. Walters Art Gallery. Edited by E. D. Reeder. Baltimore, 1995, pp. 381–92; S. Moraw, Die Mänade in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. (Mainz, 1998); D. Paleothodoros, “Dionysiac Imagery on Attic Red-Figured Vases Found in Italy,” in Griechische Keramik im Kulturellen KontextGriechische Keramik im Kulturellen Kontext: Akten des Internationalen Vasen-Symposions in Kiel vom 24. bis 28.9.2001 veranstaltet durch das Archäologische Institut der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Edited by B. Schmalz and M. Söldner. Münster, 2003, p. 222; G. Fahlbusch, Die Frauen im Gefolge des Dionysos auf den attischen Vasenbildern des 6. und 5. Jhs. v. Chr. als Spiegel des weiblichen Idealbildes (Oxford, 2004); M. C. Villanueva-Puig, Ménades: Recherches sur la genèse iconographique du thiase féminin de Dionysos des origines à la fin de la période archaïque (Paris, 2009).

For ecstatic maenads and their dancing, see S. H. Lonsdale, Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion (Baltimore, 1993), pp. 76–81, 99–107.