LATVIJAS] - DSpace

A HIERON KYLIX.
By Prof. E. FELSBERG.
Before the Great War the Fine Arts Museum of the Dorpat University possessed a
highly interesting red figure strong style kylix,
which in 1872 was acquired by Professor
Schwabe for the Museum. It was bought by him from Simmaco Doria in S. Maria di
Capua, in which purchase he was assisted by W. Helbig, secretary of the Archeological
Institute at Rome 1 ). When Dorpat was threatened to be the scene of war, the kylix was
carefully packed and, together with the other valuables of the Museum, sent by me, at
the time director of the Museum, to Nijni Novgorod, where it lay about two years, at
the end of which time it was first sent to Perm, where a new university was being
founded, and from thence to Woronesh, where it arrived safe and sound and where I
used it at my lectures. In May 1920, when I left Woronesh, it was still there, but,
according to the Peace Treatise between Council Russia and Estonia, it is to be returned
to the latter and will, most probably, soon occupy the same place of honour, as before,
in the Dorpat Museum. The kylix was studied and described by
me in 1915 in the
2
Russian
language ), but as,
since the outbreak of the war, the Russian editions
rarely
penetrate into the West of Europe and besides are little read there, I will take the liberty
of expounding in English the results of my investigations 8
).
The kylix is of medium size 4
), has a comparatively low foot and is beautifully
preserved. The glaze, on the whole, is good; the inner part of the handles and the
bottom edge of the foot are clay-coloured. The handles are of a most ordinary
type, the same handles, for instance, are to be found on the Hieron vase, edited
by Furtwängler-Reichhold in the Griechische Vasenmalerei, plate 46. Under the
handles are ivy leaves. The latter are often to be found on kylikes of Epiktet and his
circle and then again on kylikes of the middle of the V century, but on kylikes belonging
to the red figure strong style ivy leaves under the handles are a rare appearance.
Hartwig 5 ) knew only two such cases: one on the Louvre kylix, which he is inclined to
attribute to Hieron'), and the other on a kylix
at Orvieto 7
); he has, however, overlooked
the well-known Munich kylix with Hera*). To these should be added our kylix, as it
must have left the workshop about the same time as the kylix in Orvieto.
The design on the inside of the kylix is edged round by two lines with an
unbroken meander between them. The meander is simple, but beautiful. Such meanders
are often to be found on Greek red figure vases of the strong style; for instance, on
the Chachrylion kylix at Palermoon two hydrias
at Munich!0\
on an amphora at the
British Museum"), on a kylix at the Louvre"),
1
on a crater at Arezzo *), on a pelike at
Vienna and on a at the kylix Cabinet de medailles at Paris, which is probably the work
of Amasis"); the meander on the last mentioned kylix, however, is rather clumsy and in
beauty cannot be compared to the kylix we are describing. We know that Hieron gene-
rally edges the inner designs with an unbroken meander"), but on the kylikes of this
master, which I have been able to study, the meander is still rather more complicated
than on our kylix.
The design on the inside of the kylix consists of only one figure, namely, the
figure of a woman in profile with a pair of soft boots in her right hand, which latter,
however, is not quite naturally drawn. Such boots are often to be found on red figure
strong style") and sometimes even on fine style") kylikes, and such, probably, was the
kothornos of the tragedy actors in the first half of the V century
B. C.1').
The woman
is in the act of putting the boots on a chair 29 ) covered by a thin cushion embroidered
with -
parallel zig zag stripes 21 ).