London E 129 (Vase)
Interior: Dionysos, Ariadne, and Eros. Exterior: Side A: Dionysos and thiasos. Side B: Same as A.
- ID:
- aa_5234
- Beazley Number:
- 218007
- Type:
- Vase
- Date:
- ca. -400 — ca. -375
- Period:
- Late Classical
- Context:
- Excavated at Nola
- Region:
- Campania
- Painter:
- Attributed to the Meleager Painter
- Dimensions:
-
H 0.090m, D 0.247m
- Ware:
- Attic Red Figure
- Shape:
- Stemless cup
Date Description
The date of ca. 400 BC was modified downward based on associated objects in the tomb.
Decoration Description
Interior: Tondo: Looking drunk, Dionysos staggers to the right, his head (in three-quarter view) thrown back as if he were singing. One arm, holding a chelys (lyre) hangs at his side; the other is flung around the neck of Ariadne who supports him with her right arm around his waist. The youthful god has long, wavy hair with a radiated stephane and a fillet over his ears. The full-bodied figure wears a mantle hanging from his left shoulder and twisted round his right leg. On the right Ariadne looks back at him, holding a tympanon on her left, decorated with a central star. She wears a long chiton, a bordered himation, draped over her left arm, and a jacket open down the front and embroidered with rosettes and a spiraliform border. Her hair is looped up with a fillet in added red and she wears a radiated stephane, earrings, bracelet, and necklace. On the left Eros flies behind them, his head thrown back as if singing and striking on an uplifted tympanon with his right hand.
Between the lip and tondo runs a wreath of vine-leaves alternating with bunches of grapes. The tondo design is set within a circle of sets of four meanders separated by checker squares.
Exterior: Side A: Here a youthful nude Dionysos wears only a fillet in his short hair. He is seated to the right on a mantle spread over the rising ground. Ground lines are indicated in added red. He leans on his right elbow and holds a thyrsos in his left hand as he turns left to look at a nymph who brings a phiale to him. On his right another nymph brings s kantharos. Both are dressed in chitons girt at the waist with their hair tied back in a knot. They wear gilded earrings, necklace, bracelets and a stephane. On the far right a full-bearded silen dances into the scene with his right arm and left leg raised. He wears only a fillet.
Exterior: Side B: The scene is the same as is depicted on Side A. But here the nymph on the right has no kantharos and turns away from Dionysos to face the right. Her right hand rests rather on her hip and her left gestures toward the silen. She stands to the right facing the dancing ithyphallic silen, as he reaches out to grab her.
The exterior scenes fall into two horizontal bands. On the broad lip is a wreath composed of myrtle flowers and alternating groups of three myrtle leaves. Beneath and beside each handle is a triple fifteen-leafed palmette ornament with bristling acanthus leaves. The area above the handles is reserved.
- Collection:
- London, British Museum
Blacas Collection. Found in the Blacas Tomb, by the elder Duc de Blacas.
Citations and Bibliography
ARV2, 1414, 89
