Collection Online as of June 4, 2023

Red-Figure Bell Krater (Mixing Vessel): Aphrodite and Eros

c. 370–360 BC

attributed to Graz Painter

(South Italian, Apulian, active c. 380–360 BC)

South Italian, Apulian

Ceramic

Overall: 30.5 cm (12 in.)

Gift of J. H. Wade 1924.534

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The dancing nude youths on the reverse are unusual; typically they would be standing and draped.

Description

This small mixing vessel shows a finely dressed woman seated on a chest and holding up a mirror to admire herself. Before her stands Eros, the winged god of love, holding a ribbon or sash. Behind the woman stands a pillar with the inscription ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗ, or APHRODITE, the goddess of love. Such labels are rare on vases, and scholars debate whether this names the woman shown as Aphrodite herself, with her son Eros, or a bride envisioning herself as Aphrodite, just before her wedding.

Graz Painter

Greek vase painter, active ca. 380-ca. 360 BCE in Apulia

Provenance

?-1924

Ludwig Pollak, Rome, Italy, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art

1924-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive. BAPD 1001472 www.beazley.ox.ac.uk

Boulter, C. G., Jenifer Neils, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. p. 27, Plate 43

Trendall, A. D., and Alexander Cambitoglou. The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. p. 161, no. 6/216

Powell, Barry B. Classical Myth. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2004. p. 122, Fig. 5.4

Todisco, Luigi, and Giuseppina Gadaleta. La ceramica a figure rosse della Magna Grecia e della Sicilia. Roma: "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, 2012. p. 380, No. 3

Gaifman, Milette. Aniconism in Greek Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. pp. 260-61, fig. 6.12-6.13

Exhibition history

Science within Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 13-April 20, 1980).

Mirrors: Art and Symbol. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 3-November 18, 1984).

Gallery One 2012. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 2012-March 5, 2017).