Under review are two CVA-volumes by distinguished and experienced collection curators: S. earlier wrote CVAs Basel 2–4 (1984, 1988, 2009) and M. CVA New Haven, Yale 1 (2011). The Yale CVA maintains the old-fashioned format of textbook and loose, single-sided plates in cloth and boards, and a number for each object in the text (but not on the plates), whereas the Basel CVA is published in the cased format without additional item numbers, which has become standard for the CVAs of most countries since the 1990s. Both CVAs present mainly Attic black-figure pottery with a large variety of shapes, although the Yale CVA also includes some Attic red-figure and Boeotian pottery.
Most of the vases in the Basel CVA have been on loan in the collection for a long time and could be acquired or were donated in the past three decades. None of these vases have known provenances and their collecting history or date and place of purchase are rarely mentioned, which is disappointing especially for the 2011 acquisition of the pointed amphora by the Acheloos Painter (pls 27–34) and for the recent donations, such as those by the Bosshards, that were collected between 1969 and 1990, when they were first presented in the exhibition catalogue Orient und frühes Griechenland (1990). These include a skyphos-krater by the Kerameikos Painter (pls 41.3–4, 42) and a white-ground lekythos by the Sappho Painter (pl. 64).
Many of the Basel vases have been published before, such as the name-pieces of the Painter of the Aachen horsehead (named after its previous location, pl. 1.1–2) and the Kuhn Class oinochoe (pls 54.5–8, 55.2–3). Most vases have been attributed: amphoras by the Phrynos Painter (pls 1.3–4, 2 and 3), the Amasis Painter (pls 4–6, 16–18), Painter of Vatican 342 (pls 7–9, with possibly the earliest, rare figure frieze around the lip), Guglielmi Painter (pls 13–15), Affecter (pls 19–20), Class of Cabinet des Médailles 218 (pls 25–6), a panathenaic amphora by the Kleophrades Painter (pls 35–6), a stamnos from the Circle of the Painter of London B 343 (pls 37–9), a dinos by the Painter of Louvre Cp 12243 (pls 40–41.1–2), a hydria by the Archippe Painter (pls 45–6), a hydria by the Antimenes Painter and one from his Circle (pls 47–51), a hydria and lekythos by the Leagros Group (pls 52–3, 59), a lekythos and a fragment by Lydos (pls 56, 63.1), a kyathos by Theozotos (pl. 60), a band-cup attributed to the Manner of Elbows Out (pls 61.1–3, 62), a lip-cup by the Kalistanthe Painter (pl. 61.4–8).
Only four vases receive their first full publication here. One is an amphora attributed to the Leagros Group with a farewell scene of a warrior on one side and Dionysos between dancing satyrs and maenads on the other (pls 10–12). Next are an unattributed neck-amphora with a turning chariot on one side and a row of three warriors between two Scythians on the other (pls 21–2), and a neck-amphora of the Dot-band Class with Herakles leading away Kerberos in the presence of Athena and Hermes on one side and Dionysos between two dancing satyrs on the other (pls 23–4). Very interesting is the last new vase, a rather fat, pointed amphora by the Acheloos Painter (pls 27–34). The shape was an invention of the potters for the first generation of red-figure painters and was adopted by the Acheloos Painter to whom all known five black-figure examples are attributed. One side depicts a lively scene of satyrs treading grapes, remarkably flanked by Dionysos riding a donkey on the left and Hermes doing the same on the right. The reverse and both sides of the shoulder show symposiasts, a bit more intoxicated in the main picture.
Iconographically, the Basel vases have a lot to offer, partly with rather familiar subjects such as the Birth of Athena and Herakles’ apotheosis (pls 1.3–4, 2 and 3), Herakles fighting Geryoneus, or Kyknos (pls 37.1–2, 38.1, 39.1–2, 49), many Dionysiac scenes (e.g. pls 8.3–4, 11.2), Artemis as Potnia Theron (pl. 18), Hephaistos riding a donkey (pls 19.1, 20.1), an amazonomachy (pls 14.1, 15.1–3) or some very flexible komasts (pls 14.2, 15.4–6). But there are much rarer scenes as well, such as Neoptolemos’ Aristeia, a story from the Ilias Mikra (pl. 48), the Dioskouroi on horseback (pls 45.1, 46.1–3), a rare hunting scene, in which a boar and two deer are hunted at the same time (pls 9.2, 4–6), a ritual banquet for women (pl. 59), Phineus and two Harpies (pl. 64).
Some notes: on p. 30 S. mentions articles concerning nonsense inscriptions on ‘Tyrrhenian’ vases. Add to these a recent article, rejecting the conclusions of the mentioned A. Mayor et al., ‘Making Sense of Nonsense Inscriptions’ (2014): A. Kassian, ‘Un-making Sense of alleged Abkhaz-Adygean Inscriptions on Ancient Greek Pottery’, ACSS 22 (2016), 177–98. The identification of the goddess opposite Apollo as Artemis on the amphora of Class of the Cabinet des Médailles 218 (p. 37) is supported by a recently surfaced amphora from this class with the same scene, signed by the potter Pamphaios and attributed to the Euphiletos Painter. Here the goddess wears a polos crown, an attribute often associated with Artemis. The vase (BAPD 9028908) was said to be part of the collection of the Swiss industrial Marcel Ebnöther in Schaffhausen since before 1972, but it was first published in the 2006 exhibition catalogue The Painter's Eye. The Art of Greek Ceramics. Greek Vases from a Swiss Private Collection and Other European Collections, pp. 8–11. It was subsequently offered for sale in London (Bonhams, 6 October 2010, lot 93). Add to the literature on the Acheloos Painter, pp. 40–1: E.J. Holmberg, The Red-Line Painter and the Workshop of the Acheloos Painter (1990). Add to the bibliography of band-cup BS 1493 (pls 61.1–3, 62.1–6): A. Bignasca et al., Sex, Drugs und Leierspiel. Rausch und Ekstase in der Antike (2011), 76, no. 59; it is recorded in the BAPD (no. 9028619). The cup belongs to a small group of band-cups on which the central scene is flanked by pairs of animals. Their shape, size and style are very similar. Apart from the mentioned Munich 7414, the following four cups belong: London market (Sotheby's, 9–10 July 1984, lot 203; this is the cup from Galerie Puhze shown in Dierichs’ fig. 84, which S. mentions), Kassel T 704 (CVA 1, pls 29.3, 30.3) with a squatting man holding a white hen flanked by swans and hens; the reverse shows three swans and two hens only), Piraeus (inv. no. unknown; G. Steinhauer, The Archaeological Museum of Piraeus [2001], 108, fig. 153), where a squatting Herakles wrestling the Nemean lion is flanked by swans and hens, and a fragmentary band-cup in a Bern private collection (unpublished) depicting a heterosexual symplegma between two nude dancers flanked by a swan facing a lion on each side.
In both collections the Kleophrades Painter is represented by panathenaic amphoras depicting a racing chariot on the reverse, and the painter's typical device for Athena's shield, a Pegasos. The two panathenaics at Yale (pls 71–5) were the first Attic figured vases to enter the collection in 1909. The core of Yale's vase collection is formed by the so-called Stoddard Collection of vases named after the donor of the funds to purchase them in 1913. Recent additions are vases and fragments from the collection of Martin Robertson (2008) and a red-figure bell krater (2011). M. goes to great lengths to uncover the collecting history of each vase, in the case of the panathenaics leading us back to Rome, 1837, when alien and new fragments were inserted in one of them, as discovered during conservation treatment in 1995.
Like the Basel collection, many of the Yale vases have been widely known, published and attributed by Beazley and other experts. They include an amphora by Group E (pls 64–6), a loutrophoros-amphora by Sophilos (pl. 76) and a loutrophoros-hydria from the Polos Group (pl. 77), a hydria near the Tyrrhenian Group with a combination of figures on the shoulder, which is not matched within the group (pls 78–9), an olpe by the painter of Vatican G 49 (pl. 82), lekythoi belonging to the Group of Little Black-neck Lekythoi (pl. 84), Phanyllis Group B (pls 85, 97.5), possibly by the Edinburgh Painter (pls 88–9, 97.6), Athena Painter (pls 90, 97.7), Beldam Painter (pls 91, 97.9), the Haimon Painter or his Manner (pls 92–94.1–4), the Diosphos Painter (pls 96.5–8), a lekythos in Six's technique from the Little-Lion-Class (pls 97.10–98), two alabastra by the Emporion Painter (pls 99, 101.1), a skyphos from the Pistias Class (pls 107.1–4), a komast cup by the KY Painter and a Siana by the Heidelberg Painter (pls 109–11), a band-cup by the Centaur Painter (pl. 114), an eye-cup by the FC Painter (pls 115.4–17). Noteworthy is the rare askos in the form of a tortoise (pls 103.3–4). Of the four Boeotian vases only a lekane has been attributed, to the Protome Painter (pl. 118).
Amongst the vases that were unpublished (or just mentioned before) is a neck-amphora fragment by the Affecter, which M. was able to join to one of several fragments in Heidelberg, which in turn have been associated with fragments in Frankfurt and Paris by Mommsen and von Bothmer (pl. 67 shows the reconstruction of all fragments). Another new neck-amphora fragment showing Herakles and the Erymanthian boar is attributed to the Leagros Group (pl. 68). Further, there are lekythoi from the Little-Lion Class and the Dolphin Group (pl. 86) and the Class of Athens 581 (pls 96.1–4). The red-figure bell krater was attributed to the Pothos Painter (pls 122–3) and depicts a sacrifice scene, one of the four known in this painter's oeuvre; only the Yale vase shows the animal being led to the altar, the others show the point in the sacrifice after the animal has been slaughtered. Nearly all of the Robertson fragments have been attributed, in black-figure, to the Komast Group and the Gorgon Painter (pls 125.3 and 7), in red-figure, to the Painter of Bologna 228, Hermonax and the Syleus, Kleophrades, Nikoxenos, Cleveland, Syracuse, Niobid, Altamura, Florence, Washing and Inscription Painters (pls 126–127.4, 127.6–28).
Iconographically, the Yale vases offer familiar subjects, such as the Birth of Athena (pls 64.1, 66.1), Herakles and Kyknos (pl. 87), combat scenes (pls 78.1, 79.2, 85, 86.1–3), Dionysiac scenes (pl. 86.4–6). An unattributed tripod pyxis depicts scenes of Achilles and Troilos, a man courting a youth, and a scene with a veiled woman between draped and nude youths (not Helen, as once thought, but rejected by M.; pls 101.2–3, 102). Rarer subjects include Apollo mounting a chariot drawn by a lion, a lioness, a boar, and a wolf in the presence of Leto, Artemis and Hermes (pls 88–9). The scene has been identified as the chariot of Admetos, but this remains uncertain as M. explains (pp. 36–7). Others are a scene of the unharnessing of a chariot (pl. 91), Hermes attacking the double-headed Argos (pl. 92.1–4), an apobates scene in which the runner is placed nearest the viewer (pl. 93.5–8), Dionysos riding an ityphallic donkey, on an unattributed white-ground plate (pl. 104).
Some notes: the subject of Herakles in a fight with Amazons is rare on black-figure olpai, especially of the black-mouthed variety (pl. 81, p. 22). However, an additional black-mouthed olpe from the Dot-Ivy Group with this scene was once on the London market (Sotheby's, 12 December 1988, lot 146; one of the Amazons flees the scene, whereas the two others attack Herakles). Add to the long list of comparisons for the scene of Ajax and Achilles gaming in the presence of Athena (pl. 83) a lekythos by the Edinburgh Painter in Bremen, Antikenmuseum im Schnoor (M. Steinhart, Töpferkunst und Meisterzeichnung. Attische Wein- und Őlgefässe aus der Sammlung Zimmermann [1996], 77–81, no. 15). In addition to the iconography of Poseidon on a hippocamp (on a lekythos said to have come from Taranto, where Poseidon was the guardian deity, pl. 90) one may note two much cruder, recently published lekythoi, Harrogate 3858 and Ancient Skione MP 2026 (S. Waite, Acquiring Antiquity. Greek and Cypriote Pottery from the Harrogate Collection [2014], 56, no. 50, and E.B. Tsigarida and D. Patis, ‘Archaic Pottery from the Cemetery at Ancient Skione’, in M. Tiverios et al. [edd.], Archaic Pottery of the Northern Aegean and its Periphery (700–480 bc) [2012], p. 495, fig. 11; the authors cautiously identify the rider on the hippocamp as Poseidon). The two alabastra by the Emporion Painter (pls 99 and 101.1) are now included in I. Algrain's monograph (L'Alabastre Attique. Origine, forme et usages [2014], 114–21, cat. nos EMP 1.4 and EMP 1.65). A recently published fragment of a gorgoneion skyphos from Miletus may now be added to the list of twelve known gorgoneion-skyphoi (pl. 106, p. 64): N. Kunisch, Milet V.3. Die Attische Importkeramik (2016), pl. 29, no. 249. Add to the comparisons of the fragment of a top-band cup with reclining Dionysos between large eyes (pl. 115.2), a top-band cup with, on each side between large eyes, two reclining, bearded men with a gesticulating satyr in between (CVA Thessaloniki, Cast Museum 1, pl. 28.1–3).
Both CVAs are well produced. Apart from the first-time publication of vases presented in these CVAs, the renewed, updated publication of many known vases is valuable as well. The CVA-format offers space for 1:1 drawings of the inscriptions (Basel), the collecting history of the vases (Yale), useful profile drawings and excellent photos, including many details when the decoration requires those. The comments in both CVAs are sufficiently supported by comparisons. Both authors provide clear argumentation for the attributions, which are often made by others, for example Beazley. Their treatment of the shapes and the iconography is detailed and accurate, although there are some differences in their approach. S. often chooses a simple reference to the literature with limited citation, whereas M. tends to be more elaborate with résumés of the discussion. These are two important additions to the CVA series. They will certainly, as M. hopes (p. ix), ‘generate new thoughts and new research on the vases therein’, and also on vases that can now be associated with them.
