Perseus Art and Archaeology Browser

ID:

aa_4401

Beazley Number:

201522

Type:

Vase

Date:

ca. -520

Period:

Archaic

Painter:

Attributed to the Paseas (The Cerberus Painter)

Dimensions:

H. 0.03 m.; D 0.187 m.; D foot 0.114 m.

Ware:

Attic Red Figure

Shape:

Plate

Decoration Description

In a scene from the Ilioupersis, Ajax, the son of Oileus, drags the prophetess Kassandra away from the statue of Athena at which she has taken refuge during the sack of Troy. This is the earliest surviving version of the scene in red-figure vase painting, although there are numerous black-figure antecedents. Ajax moves in from the right, striding left. He has grasped Kassandra by both arms as he tries to pull her away from the statue. Ajax wears a crested Corinthian helmet and a short chiton. A sword in a striped scabbard hangs from his shoulder (not across the chest in the usual manner), the baldric indicated by two lines. He appears to be barefoot, an ironic concession to the sanctity of the sanctuary he is otherwise violating, and he wears an ankle bracelet around his proper right ankle.

Kassandra, a nude diminutive figure, moves unwillingly to the right while looking back at Athena. The prophetess has hooked her right arm around Athena's shield-bearing arm and grasps one of the statue's drapery folds with her right hand. The conjunction of Ajax's grasping hand with these two interlocked arms produces a remarkable dramatic effect, framed by the inside of the shield, and possible only in red-figure. Beazley (iii p. 64, note 6) raises the question of possible erotic connotations of Kassandra's nudity, a subject explored most recently by Cohen 1992.

Athena stands facing right with her feet together and firmly planted on the ground. She holds her shield, with the inside shown, on her left arm, and her right arm is raised holding a spear as if to throw it. She wears a long undecorated chiton and himation and an Attic helmet with a high crest (cut off, as is her spear, by the black band inside the tondo border). A spiral adorns the helmet. Her forehead curls are indicated in relief. Athena's pose recalls that of the Athena Promachos type, known from Panathenaic amphorae, for example, except that here she stands rather than striding forward. Her static pose reinforces our understanding of her as a statue rather than the living goddess. As Beazley notes (Caskey & Beazley, vol. 3, 63, note 6), Athena is always a statue in these scenes, or else Ajax would be dead.

Paseas worked in both black- and red-figure, decorating mostly plates, cups, and plaques. Initially called the Cerberus Painter by Beazley, after the plate with Herakles and Cerberus in Boston (Boston 01.8025, the painter's ancient name, Paseas, was discovered by Boardman 1955 on two fragments of a black-figure plaque from the Acropolis in Athens (Athens, Acr. 2583). Beazley (ARV2, 164) accepted the ancient name, but still liked his own and used them both. According to Beazley (ARV2, 163), the painter closest to Paseas in style is Psiax.

Graffiti

All the figures are labelled: *A*I*A*S, *A*Q*E*N*A*I*A, *K*A*T*A*D*R*A (in the exergue), "Ajax, Athena, Kassandra"

Collection:

Yale University Art Gallery

Paul Arndt collection; purchased for Yale by Rebecca Darlington Stoddard

Citations and Bibliography

ARV2, 163.4, 1630; Para, 337; Beazley Addenda 2, 182

Buitron No. 31

K. Schefold, "Statuen auf Vasenbilder," JdI 52 (1937) 42; Boardman 1955, 154; Caskey & Beazley, vol. 3, 63-64; O. Touchfeu, in LIMC, I, 336-51, pls. 253-68; Matheson 1986; Cohen 1992.

J. Davreux, La Lgende de la Prophtesse Cassandre (Lige 1942); M.I. Wiencke, "An Epic Theme in Greek Art," AJA 58 (1954) 285-91; J.M. Moret, L'Ilioupersis dans la cramique italiote (Rome 1975).