Vases from Odos Pandrosou

Abstract

The showcases of the antique-dealers in Odos Pandrosou are full of little lekythoi which were painted for the tombs of humble men of the people, and which to-day are destined for modest purchasers or for the Inspectors of the Archaeological Section of the Ministry of Education, while for more important purchasers there are hidden away somewhere else works of much greater value. It is seldom that we are stopped by the art or the subject of one of these lekythoi.In 1943 when I was making an inventory of the stock of one antique-dealer—that which was on show—I picked out one lekythos which the owner gladly presented to the National Museum (Plate IVa, Figs, 1 and 2). From the funeral pyre the surface of the vase has taken a brown-grey colour, and the many joins show that it had been thrown to be broken and burnt with the dead body.A curious male figure wrapped in a himation up to the top of the head, so that only the -eye and the upper part of the head remain free, walks rapidly to the left, raising one leg vigorously. He lifts his himation with his hand to help him move. High boots cover his legs to a point just below the knee. The hanging wreath does not appear to be related to the interpretation of the picture, but is taken from the commonplaces of funeral lekythoi, especially white ones.

The ‘Perseus Dance’ Vase Revisited

“…Bulle (1937) thinks the performance was a private one for an aristocratic erastes and his young eromenos . Karouzou (1945) takes the absence of a mask to mean that the spectators were a poet and ‘producer’ watching a Perseus‐comedy in rehearsal. Taplin (1993) also sees it as a rehearsal, without mask or costume.…”

“…While many scholars, none of whom had actually seen the vase, disputed Caputo's interpretation of its details, none questioned his fundamental assumptions: the first actor shown ‘in the exercise of his profession’ (Karouzou 1945) playing Perseus on the only Attic stage, before the only ancient audience. The identification of the curved object as a curtain was not questioned until 1978, when Hamilton suggested that it might represent a boat.…”

“…Since its first publication in 1935, the scene painted upon the chous variously known as the ‘Perseus Dance’, ‘Anavyssos’ and ‘Vlastos’ vase has been regarded as a critical document in the history of theatre. Accepted history holds that it has the only ancient picture of a theatre audience, the only Attic view of a stage, and the first portrait of an actor presenting a character (Athens ΒΣ 518, Karouzou 1945, 42). Its iconography is certainly a significant experiment in vase painting, testing the tensions between the developing realism of its time and the synecdoche the artist must adopt to represent a large subject in a small medium.…”

“…4b; also in Csapo (2001). The drawing is found in Dugas (1936), Bulle (1937), Karouzou (1945), Pickard‐Cambridge (1953), Breitholtz (1960), BH 2 , Gould and Lewis (1968), Gascoigne (1968), Webster (1970), IGD , Hamilton (1978), McLeish (1980), and Boardman (1989).…”

“…24 24 Karouzou (1945, 42) and Brommer (1959, 74–5) think the scene might be ‘a rehearsal without costume’ as Taplin (1993, 9) also suggests; he adds ‘but if so, why?’ …”