PLATE LXII.
[Fig. 109]. RHYTON WITH RED-FIGURED DECORATION ON THE NECK.
The Bonn hydria of Euthymides with the praise of Megakles shows a quite new type of vase; in contrast to the offset black-figured shape, it unites neck and body in an elegant curve, so that the old-fashioned division of the decoration into two or three parts disappears. The same fair youth is praised by his gifted colleague Phintias, whom we see from his beginnings in the workshop of Deiniades expanding more and more brilliantly, on a London hydria of the old shape; but the gracefully moving boys, who in the picture while drawing water are addressed by an older man, already carry water-pots of both types in their hands, and Phintias himself occasionally adopted the later shape; as does the painter Hypsis with the pretty well-house scene (Fig. [106]), on which again both vase-shapes are represented; for the girl, who is just putting the cushion on her head, has placed a pitcher of the old type under the lion’s head spout from which the water is pouring, while her companion is lifting a hydria of the new shape already well-filled from the satyr’s mouth. The intensive study of the female form is seen in Oltos’ picture of a hetaira (Fig. [104]) and in many other vase-paintings of the period, and even when they represent girls clothed, the painters are unwilling to sacrifice their newly-won knowledge to external probability, and even under the drapery help the charm of the body outline to assert itself, as Hypsis does on his well-scene (Fig. [106]).
Like the Bonn hydria, the works of Euthymides witness to the emergence of new vase-types, the Turin psykter and the unsigned Vienna pelike. An idea may be obtained of the psykter (which is regarded as a cooling vessel) by the later example in Rome (Fig. [104]) in which the narrower cylindrical lower part is however missing. The pelike is a kind of small wineskin-shaped amphora. Even the transitional artist Pamphaios gave Oltos a stamnos (cp. Fig. 146) to paint, and the early red-figured artist Smikros painted one. The calyx-krater, a kind of enlarged cup with low-set handles, seems to appear in the Leagros period (Fig. [113]). The remarkable vases in the shape of a head (Figs. [101], [109]) in a smaller form served for the reception of unguents and oil even in Protocorinthian and early Ionic styles, but seem only at this time to become popular as bumpers in the service of the drinker, and the pretty heads of negroes and girls with the love-names Epilykos and Leagros form the beginning of the development, which culminates in Sotades ([p. 142]).
The other drinking vessels, the kantharos, which is brandished by Duris’ satyrs (Fig. [122]), the skyphos, from which Euphronios’ hetairai are drinking (Fig. [112]) are only continuations and refinements of old shapes (Figs. [88], [43]). The favourite drinking utensil is naturally the kylix, which even for the “little master” period in fabrication and exportation is at the head of the vases, and now not only receives its finest finish, but also through the abundance of specimens preserved and the richness of inscriptions renders the most valuable service to the historian.
On the Andokides amphora (Fig. [103]), the psykters of Euphronios (Fig. [ 112]), and Duris (Fig. [122]), the shape with offset rim appears. This late specimen of the old type must have been more popular than the extant painted examples lead one to suppose, but was certainly far less usual than the shape with a single curve, which the red-figured style took over with the eye kylikes and in the most delicate way simplified and animated.
The history of these kylikes, like that of the big-bellied amphorae, begins with examples of mixed technique. Andokides actually extended his principle of the black-figured and red-figured halves of the vase to kylikes: but happily this procedure was extremely rare. In the early