This is the earliest preserved vase with the signature of the potter Andokides. Thus it constitutes a most important piece of evidence concerning the beginnings of the artist from whose workshop the red-figure technique emerged. It shares features with vases of Nikosthenes and Group E. The shape and the allocation of ornament—the zone of ivy for instance—testify to an independent artistic personality.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta amphora (jar)
Artist:Signed by Andokides as potter
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 540 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 10 3/8 in. (26.4 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Christos G. Bastis, in honor of Carlos A. Picón, 1999
Accession Number:1999.30a, b
Until 1948, collection of William Henry Lawrence Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, UK; July 1948, purchased by William Randolph Hearst through Christie’s, London; 1948-1951, collection of W.R. Hearst; December 1951, purchased by Mr. Christos G. Bastis through Parke-Bernet, New York; 1951-1999, collection of Mr. and Mrs. Christos G. Bastis, New York; acquired in February 1999, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Christos G. Bastis.
Christie's, London. 1948. Etruscan and Greek Vases; Fine English Furniture. July 15, 1948. lot 12.
Metzger, Henri. 1951. Les représentations dans la céramique attique du IVe siècle. p. 104, fig. 38, Paris: E. de Boccard.
Parke-Bernet Galleries. 1951. Egyptian, Greek & Roman art, Greek terra cotta vases, Gothic and Renaissance sculptures, furniture and stained glass, architectural stonework, three notable paintings, Renaissance silver, XV century Valencian ware. December 7– 8, 1951. lot 8.
Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums. 1954. Ancient art in American private collections. A loan exhibition at the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, December 28, 1954-February 15, 1955. no. 254, Cambridge, Mass: Fogg Museum, Harvard Art Museums.
von Bothmer, Dietrich and Cornelius Clarkson Vermeule. 1956. "Notes on a New Edition of Michaelis : Ancient marbles in Great Britain. Part II." American Journal of Archaeology, 60(4): p. 346.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1961. Ancient Art from New York Private Collections: Catalogue of an Exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, December 17, 1959–February 28, 1960. no. 198, pp. 51–52, pl. 73, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1966. "Andokides the Potter and the Andokides Painter." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24(6): p. 202.
Cohen, Beth. 1978. Attic Bilingual Vases and Their Painters. p. 3, New York: Garland.
Beazley, John D. 1986. The Development of Attic Black Figure, Vol. 24, 2nd ed.. p. 104 [p. 69 n. 2], pl. 79, 1, Berkeley: University of California Press.
von Bothmer, Dietrich, Bernard V. Bothmer, Pat Getz-Preziosi, Diana Buitron-Oliver, and Andrew Oliver, Jr. 1987. Antiquities from the Collection of Christos G. Bastis, Emma Swan Hall, ed. no. 150, pp. 248–50, figs. 150a-150c, Mainz on Rhine: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.
Mackay, Anne. 1996. "Time and Timelessness in the Traditions of Early Greek Oral Poetry and Archaic Vase-Painting." Voice into Text: Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece, Mnemosyne Supplement: p. 53 n. 17, fig. 6.
Picón, Carlos A., Joan R. Mertens, and Seán Hemingway. 1999. "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection 1998–1999." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 57(2): p. 8.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1999. "One Hundred Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1998 through June 30, 1999." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 129: p. 17.
Moore, Mary B. 2001. "Andokides and a Curious Attic Black-Figured Amphora." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 36: pp. 15–19, 21–22, 24–32, figs. 1–8, 23–25.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 95, pp. 89, 423, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. p. 104, fig. 38, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Chiarini, Sara. 2018. The So-called Nonsense Inscriptions on Ancient Greek Vases : Between Paideia and Paidiá. pp. 416–17, Leiden/ Boston: Brill.
Williams, Dyfri, Kenneth Lapatin, Nicholaus Dietrich, Judith M. Barringer, Francois Lissarrague, and Edinburgh University Press. 2022. Images at the Crossroads : Media and Meaning in Greek Art, Judith M. Barringer and Francois Lissarrague, eds. p. 27, Edinburgh.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
