Harvard Art Museums > 1959.221: Lekythos (oil flask): Visit at Tomb Vessels Collections Search Exit Deep Zoom Mode Zoom Out Zoom In Reset Zoom Full Screen Add to Collection Order Image Copy Link Copy Citation Citation"Lekythos (oil flask): Visit at Tomb (The Bird Painter) , 1959.221,” Harvard Art Museums collections online, May 07, 2024, https://hvrd.art/o/290987. Reuse via IIIF Toggle Deep Zoom Mode Download This object does not yet have a description. Identification and Creation Object Number 1959.221 People The Bird Painter Title Lekythos (oil flask): Visit at Tomb Classification Vessels Work Type vessel Date c. 450-400 BCE Places Creation Place: Ancient & Byzantine World, Europe, Attica Period Classical period, High Culture Greek Persistent Link https://hvrd.art/o/290987 Physical Descriptions Medium Terracotta Technique White ground Dimensions H. 21 cm (8 1/4 in.) State, Edition, Standard Reference Number Standard Reference Number Beazley Archive Database #216408 Acquisition and Rights Credit Line Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of David M. Robinson Accession Year 1959 Object Number 1959.221 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 On the shoulder: three connected palmettes in reddish brown. On the body: In the center, there is gravestone on a two-stepped platform with a simplified Doric top. There are two fillets tied around the middle and base. A child with curly hair approaches from the left, holding up a mirror in her left hand; her clothing has worn off entirely. On the right there is a woman with a crescent-shaped earring, draped in a dark red himation with her bare right arm raised towards the gravestone. A band of meander pattern decorates the top of the body. This vase has been assembled from fragments and extensively repaired. The mouth and handle may in fact have originally come from another similar vase. 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, but it is often not possible to make identifications like this with any certainty. The presence of a child on this vase is an uncommon feature. 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 J. D. Beazley, Review of Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: United States of America 4 = The Robinson Collection, Baltimore, Md., 1 by David Moore Robinson, Journal of Hellenic Studies (1934), 54, pp. 89-90, p.90 David Moore Robinson, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum U.S.A.: volume 3, The Robinson Collection, Baltimore, MD, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1938), p. 54, fig. 6, pl. 41a-c J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1963), 1232.11 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 Marie-Claire Crelier, Kinder in Athen im gesellschaftlichen Wandel des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr., Eine archaologische Annaherung (Remshalden, 2008), fig. L33 Exhibition History The David Moore Robinson Bequest of Classical Art and Antiquities: A Special Exhibition, Fogg Art Museum, 05/01/1961 - 09/20/1961 [teaching exhibition], University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque Verification Level This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
