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SCAN30029
VRS36052
VRS36053
VRS36054
VRS36055
VRS36056
VRS36057
VRS38617

http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:30029_mddl
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:VRS36052_mddl
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:VRS36053_mddl
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:VRS36054_mddl
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:VRS36055_mddl
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:VRS36056_mddl
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:VRS36057_mddl
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUAM:VRS38617_mddl

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Attic Black-figure Panathenaic Prize Amphora, 340-339 BC

Vessel
Greek, 4th century BC
Classical period, Late, 404-323 BC
Terracotta
80 cm h x 39 cm diam (31 1/2 x 15 3/8 in.)
Creation Place: Attica, Europe
Harvard Art Museum/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Joseph C. Hoppin, 1925.30.124
Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art & Numismatics

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. Please contact the curatorial department listed above for more information.

Description: Side A: Athena Promachos advancing to right clothed in an archaic Ionic chiton ornamented with a dotted border in white and provided with rudimentary sleeves ending in two swallow-tails thrown over each shoulder, Attic helmet with tall crest, and brandishing a spear in her right while covering herself with a shield which she holds in her left. Her head, helmet, and right hand project into the upper border. On both shoulders and breast, crossing cords in white with a central knot which originally supported th e aegis, but now has almost entirely disappeared. Traces of a bracelet on her right wrist and sandals on her feet in light brown. On either side of her a Doric column, supporting a figure, that on the left a female, helmeted figure (probably Athena), holding a tiller, that on the right Zeus with sceptre and Nike. Along each column the inscriptions "kionedon," on the left TON ATHENETHEN ATHLON, on the right THEIOPHRASTOS ERXE.

Side B: Athletic scene. In the center, two nude boxers full front, their hands bound with the cestus. At the right a trainer to left wearing a cloak draped over his left arm and a wreath in his hair, holding a staff in his left, his right outstretched. At the left a female figure draped entirely in a mantle which leaves only the upper part of her face bare, the lower part being outlined beneath it, leaning on a Doric column. Beside her head OLYMPIAS.

Spout, shoulder, handles, and base glazed, with a reserved band on upper part of base. Palmette chain on neck at junction of handles and below an elongated tongue pattern shorter on B than on A. Panel on each side containing the design, that of A longer than B. Applied white is used for the exposed flesh surfaces of Athena and the details of her drapery, as well as those of the figures on the columns on A, head and feet of Olympias, wreath and staff of trainer and the column on B. Execution careful with good incisions, originally filled with white.

Said to have come from Capua. Intact, except for the rim, which has been broken and repaired.
Commentary: Re-View Exhibition, Spring 2008, gallery label information:

This large vessel once contained part of the measure of olive oil regularly awarded to victors in the athletic games of Athens, known as the Panathenaia. One side represents the contest-a boxing match-for which it was the prize. Along with the two nude boxers and a referee is a female figure identified as Olympias, the personification of the Olympic Games. The other side shows the goddess Athena, to whom the Panathenaic festival was dedicated. The inscriptions next to the columns indicate the festival ("from the Games at Athens") and the date ("during the magistracy of Theophrastos"), which is 340-339 BC. Though the black-figure technique had long been eclipsed by red-figure, the former was still used on the Panathenaic amphorae, no doubt as an expression of the festival's antiquity. Similarly, Athena's pose and dress are consciously archaizing.

Additional information:

Distinctive in shape and iconography, the amphora identifies itself through an inscription, painted vertically behind the standing figure of Athena: “TON ATHENETHEN ATHLON” ([I am] from the games at Athens). The first examples of this amphora type are associated with the reorganization of the Panathenaic Festival in 566 B.C., when athletic competitions were established, to be held by the Athenians every four years on the 28th of Hecatombaion (July–August) at the events called the Greater Panathenaia. A Lesser Panathenaic festival was held annually in the intervening years. These celebrations were meant to mark the birth of Athena, patron goddess of the city.

Under the direction of the festival’s officials, black-figure vases such as these, among some of the largest produced from the Athenian potters’ workshops, were filled with olive oil from the sacred trees of Athena and awarded as prizes for the particular athletic events depicted on the reverse side of the vases. Probably because of the conservative customs associated with this religious festival, Panathenaic amphorae remained relatively standard in shape and decoration, holding an average of about thirty-nine liters or one ‘metretes,’ an Athenian unit of liquid measure, and were always decorated in the black-figure technique, long after that decoration had been abandoned for the red-figure style. Awarded as prizes in the games as late as the second century B.C., Panathenaic amphorae are testimony to the unique and enduring tradition of this Athenian festival and its prizes.
Provenance: Joseph Clark Hoppin, Purchased in Rome, 1899, Bequest to Fogg Art Museum, 1925. Said to have come from Capua.
Bibliography: Joseph Clark Hoppin, "[Unidentified article]", American Journal of Archaeology (1906), pp. 385 ff., pl. 16

"[Unidentified article by Robinson]", American Journal of Archaeology (1910), pp. 424, note 1, and 425, note 1, no. 9

Georg von Brauchitsch, Die Panathenäischen Preisamphoren, B.G. Teubner (Leipzig and Berlin, 1910), p. 57, no. 92

Joseph Clark Hoppin and Albert Gallatin, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, U.S.A.: volume 1, Hoppin and Gallatin Collections, Libraire Ancienne Edouard Champion (Paris, 1926)

Aspasia Papanastasiou, "The Relations Between the Black-Glazed and Red-Figured Vases of Attica During the Fourth Century BC", (2000), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Exhibition History: Re-View: S422 Ancient & Byzantine Art & Numismatics, Harvard Art Museum/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 04/12/2008 - 07/01/2013

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