f - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

410 MARIO IOZZO
with an inverted echinus. A slight offset marks the
point of juncture between the base and the plinth.
The top of the plinth is painted red.
Findspot: Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, area
south of M:16-17, in a context dated between the
5th and 4th centuries B.C. (Lot 3411).240
122. Base fragment Fig. 6, P1. 82
C-70-595, H. 0.10, W. 0.114. Plinth: H. 0.075,
Th. 0.03; W. of base support 0.017. Base: rest. D.
0.256, Th. 0.007.
Very impure, reddish yellow clay (7.5YR 7/6)
with predominantly red inclusions; fine slip of the
same reddish yellow color as clay, confined to the
outer surface. A corner of the plinth, the begin-
ning of the base, and perhaps the connecting ring
between the two parts are preserved; surface
much eroded in places, with areas of chipping and
deep abrasions.
High, square plinth with vertical sides; above rests a
hollow, cylindrical base with a profile slightly
spreading at the top. On the top surface of the plinth
and on the ring, both colored brown, a dolphin with
details (dorsal fin and flippers) painted a very diluted
brown and a series of waves rolling right, reserved
on the light clay background.
Findspot: Sacred Spring,241 in a context dated to
the end of the 5th and beginning of the 4th century
B.C.
The decorative motif fits within such time limits;
there is an attempt to appreciate the volumes
through the use of diluted color bands painted along
the arched back and curved edges of the dolphin's
fins. Although a rather humble trade product, 122
attests to the same search for new possibilities of expression
which characterized vase painting at the
end of the 5th century B.C.; these new expressions
were created in the wake of the achievements of the
great figures in wall painting and easel painting,
obtaining volume through the use of chiaroscuro and
the contour line. The new trails which those artists
blazed were largely outside the technical possibilities
of pottery, which was limited, even in the attempts
on vases with white backgrounds, to shading and
simple foreshortening. The manner of shading on
this dolphin recalls analogous attempts at chiaroscuro
on vases dating from the mid-5th century, especially
by the circle of Polygnotos; the artists tried
to transfer results from monumental painting to vase
painting,242 by using variations in tonality, lighting,
and zones of shading which attempted a relief effect.
All in all, the dolphin on 122 can be dated to the end
of the 5th century B.C., and it can be considered to be
at a higher technical level than similar contemporary
examples seeking chromatic, rather than volumetric,
effects. Compare, for example, an Attic aksos from
Spina on which the dolphins, in contrast to the white
waves into which they are diving, have only a few
details rendered by simple dashes of paint.243
End of the 5th century-beginning of the 4th
century B.C.
ADDITIONAL FIGURED RIM FRAGMENTS
Two rim fragments with relief scenes impressed with cylinder matrixes have been excluded
from the main catalogue: they have already been published by Weinberg and have been
commonly believed to belong to large basins similar to those here considered. The poor
condition of the first fragment makes it impossible to establish the class to which it belongs.
The profile of the second fragment, which has no precise comparisons in the Corinthian
production of large basins, and especially because its limited diameter, no greater than
0.40 m., suggests that it should be included in the class of Tripod Bowls; it is similar to the
noted fragment from the Heraion in Argos with Hermes, Perseus, and the Gorgons.244 Both
240 Stroud, 1968, pl. 96; Bookidis and Fisher, 1974, pp. 268-269, fig. 1 (N-0:17-18).
241 See footnote 86 above.
242 P. Moreno, "La conquista della spazialita pittorica," Storia e civilta dei Greci II, iv, Milan 1979,
pp. 631ff.; R. Bianchi Bandinelli, EAA II, 1959, pp. 547-549, s.v. Chiaroscuro.
243 L. Massei, Gli askoi afigure rosse nei corredifunerari delle necropoli di Spina, Milan 1978, pp. 147-149,
no. 90, pl. 34:2.
244 Hersom (footnote 162 above), pp. 275-278, fig. 1, pl. 72.