Revellers Vase

The Revellers Vase is attributed to the Athenian painter Euthymides, active during the Archaic period from . It is approximately in height, and is considered to have been executed around 510 BCE. Euthymides, along with other painters like Euphronios and Phintias, is considered to belong to the Pioneer Group, so named for their work with the newly invented red-figure style, in which the dark slip painted onto the vase was applied to the background, leaving the foreground rendered by the negative space in the natural colour of the clay. This contrasted with the earlier black-figure technique, where the slip was used to paint the figures, and small details picked out by scratching it away. The work of the Pioneer Group was characterised by its interest in human anatomy and the use of dynamic, space-filling poses. The vase was discovered in Vulci, then part of the Papal States, in Italy. It was excavated by Lucien Bonaparte (the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte), who excavated more than 3,000 Attic vases from Etruscan tombs on his estate near Vulci from 1828. Bonaparte found the vase in the sixth-century-BCE in March 1829. It is currently held by the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich, Germany, where it has an inventory number of 2307. It has a number of 26,1 in the ARV2 indexing system developed by John Beazley, and is numbered 200160 in the Beazley Archive Pottery Database. ==Description==

The vase is a Type A amphora, a vase-form favored by Euthymides. Two-handled amphorae, like the Revellers Vase, were typically used for the storage of wine, oil and other liquids and solids. One side of the vase shows three mostly nude male dancers (komasts) engaged in a , a wild and usually drunken ritual dance in honour of the god Dionysos, perhaps in the aftermath of an all-male drinking party known as a symposium. The left-most reveller holds a kantharos, a Greek drinking vessel. Two of the komasts are named as Eudemos and Teles, while the left-hand figure is labelled , meaning "leader of the dance". All three wear floral crowns. The vase is decorated with floral and geometric motifs on the handles and at the base, which frame the main scenes. On the opposite side to the revellers, the Trojan prince Hector is shown donning his armour before combat. He is watched by his parents, Priam and Hecuba. Hector, depicted frontally, wears a chiton (a form of tunic fastened at the shoulder), greaves and a cuirass, which he adjusts. A shield, decorated with the head of a faun, stands at his feet. Hecuba wears a chiton, a wreath and an -veil: the latter garment was traditionally associated with marriage, but often denoted mythological queens in vase-painting. She hands Hector his helmet and spear, and parts of her breast and leg can be seen through her clothing. There is a simple scratched graffito on the bottom of the foot. All of the figures in both scenes are labelled; these names, along with Hector's headband and some stripes on the vase, are executed in purple slip. Apart from Priam, all of the figures have the detail of their hair indicated by incision into the slip. The vase includes an inscription, written by Euthymides in purple slip, along the left edge of the image of the komasts: "As never Euphronios" (; ). Euphronios was Euthymides's contemporary and rival, and both painters were familiar with each other's work. The inscription is generally interpreted as a taunt or challenge to Euphronios, and as a claim that he could never equal the painting of the dancers. The art historian Gisela Richter specifically interpreted the inscription as a reference to Euthymides's use of three-quarter views, in contrast with the front-on or side-on perspective universal in Euphronios's work. However, it has also been interpreted as more closely linked with the image, claiming instead that Euphronios had never taken part in a , perhaps because this was an aristocratic activity and Euphronios was of comparatively low social origin. The classicist Jenifer Neils states that the inscription has sometimes been interpreted as a show of "senile jealousy". ==Artistic importance==

Breaking with the traditionally rigid frontal postures of contemporary Archaic statues and paintings, the revellers are depicted in dynamic, overlapping postures. The art historian Jeffrey M. Hurwit has called the Revellers Vase the most important of Euthymides's six signed painted works. Another art historian, Mary B. Moore, has emphasised the pathos of the image of Hector, suggesting that the intensity of his parents' gaze towards him indicates their knowledge that he will die in the Trojan War, and linked the vase with other contemporary works that use the heroes of the Trojan Cycle as vehicles for sympathy and tragedy. == Footnotes ==