The thirteenth fascicule of CVA Greece presents the vases housed in the Cast Collection of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The collection, interesting in many aspects, is, however, of limited value for the archaeologist who sees context as an essential ingredient of the cultural biography of ancient vases. Oddly enough for a public Greek collection, only ten vases out of the 109 presented are of known provenance (p. 9). Nevertheless, the collection serves well its educational purpose, as it was conceived by Professor Konstantinos Rhomaios in 1928–1930, when the first and most important nucleus was formed by acquisitions made from various sources. In fact, several pottery classes of major concern for vase specialists are included (Attic protogeometric and geometric, Protocorinthian and Corinthian, Boeotian orientalising and black-figure, Attic black- and red-figure, white ground and black-glaze), in addition to a tiny corpus of Minoan (no. 3) and Mycenaean pots (1–2). The material is presented in chronological order, from Minoan down to the end of the classical period. Each entry follows the conventions established and followed in the best CVA fascicules: shape, accession number, provenance (sadly this rubric is almost invariably filled with the words ‘Unknown provenance’), publication (when available), as many as possible measurements (height, diameter, width, diameter of foot, etc.), condition, clay (references to the Munsell Colour Charts are restricted to the prehistoric pots and whichever vase is not attributable to a fabric by art-historical means, i.e. nos 10–11, ‘Geometric of uncertain fabric’), glaze, description of the shape, decoration, period or date and then a rather impressively long list of comparanda. The quality of the plates is excellent, although it might be noted that in the more recent CVA's (especially the German, Austrian and Dutch ones), white ground lekythoi are normally also illustrated in colour, which is not the case here. Particularly helpful are the drawings of images on Corinthian pots, where painted decoration is sometimes fainted, due to the notorious ‘fugitive’ glaze in use in the Corinthian Kerameikos. The quality of the scholarship invested in the production of the volume is very high.
Except for a handful of interesting vases in terms of shape (for example the protogeometric hydria no. 7), style (the skyphos from Karabournaki in the Manner of the Lewis Painter, no. 40) or iconography (i.e. the Apollon and Marsyas skyphos, no. 41; the Boeotian black-figured skyphos with female dancers studied by E. Manakidou in Egnatia 9 [2005], 11–34), the collection has not received considerable attention in the past. Beazley knew and ascribed most of the red-figured vases, and some of the most noted black-figured ones (e.g. the lekythos by the Athena Painter, no. 83, with two men flanking a column atop of which stands a cock). However, most attributions to individual painters or groups are due to C. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki, who was the first scholar to provide a systematic study of the collection, or to S. herself.
I have the impression that the date of 490–470 b.c.e. for no. 88 (an Haemonian lekythos, of which unfortunately the mouth is not preserved) is somewhat higher than the shape indicates: it belongs to U. Knigge's IV/2 type (Kerameikos 9, Die Südhügel [1983], 36 and pl. 77.3, no. 132.1), which might be better placed to 470–450 b.c.e. No. 126, a lekythos in the Manner of the Sabouroff Painter, depicting a bearded man holding a round object in front of an altar, should be compared to a cup from Lattes showing a youth putting a stone (?) on an altar (L. Chazalon, ‘Les céramiques attiques du Ve s. av. n. è. à Lattes', Lattara [2010], 647, no. 44); in the light of the latter image, the alternative erotic ‘reading’ tentatively advanced by S. should be rejected. No. 126bis, unattributed red-figured chous: add in the comparanda R. Hamilton's Choes and Anthesteria, Athenian Iconography and Ritual (1992), for diminutive and small-sized choes, like the one in question.
