Collection Online as of July 6, 2022

Geometric Neck-Handled Amphora (Storage Vessel): Prothesis (Laying out of Corpse), Mourners, Chariots

c. 720–700 BC

attributed to Workshop of Athens 894

(Greek, Attic, Late Geometric llb)

Greek, Attic

Ceramic

Overall: 60 cm (23 5/8 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1927.6

Location

102B Greek

Fun Fact

The better-preserved side of this vase is actually its reverse.

Description

This neck-amphora bears multiple forms of decoration related to funerary ritual. On the neck panels, mourners beat their heads or tear out their hair. Some surround a bier, a platform where the body of the deceased lies beneath a checkered cloth. Further down, a procession of two-horse chariots moves around the vase, whether headed to the cemetery or the battlefield. The snakes applied to the handles, neck, and rim may all allude to the underworld.

Provenance

?-1926

Roussos, sold to Brummer Gallery

1926-1927

Brummer Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art

1927-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive. BAPD 1001463 www.beazley.ox.ac.uk

The Brummer Gallery Records. Cloisters (Museum), n.d. P3649 libmma.contentdm.oclc.org

R. H. "Two Greek Vases." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 14, no. 6 (1927): 99-101. www.jstor.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928. Reproduced: p. 74 archive.org

Cook, J.M. British School at Athens 35 (1934-35). p. 181

Cook, J.M. British School at Athens 42 (1947). pp. 144, 146, 148, pl. 21

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 24 archive.org

Hill, Dorothy Kent. "Accessions to the Greek Collection," Journal of the Walters Art Gallery vol. 24 (1961). p. 40, fig. 2

Hubbell, H. M., and William S. Anderson. Yale Classical Studies, Volume Sixteen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961. p. 41, fig. 34

Carter, Martha L. Classical Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1961. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 1 archive.org

Boulter, C. G., Jenifer Neils, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. pp. 3-4, pls. 2-3, I

Ahlberg, Gudrun. "Prothesis and Ekphora in Greek Geometric Art," Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology Vol. 32 (1971). fig. 36

Finkenstaedt, Elizabeth. "Mycenaean Mourning Customs in Greek Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 2 (1973). pp. 37-43

Cleveland Museum of Art, and Jenifer Neils. The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Museum in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1982. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 8-9, fig. 11

Kozloff, Arielle P. Classical Art: A Brief Guide to the Collection, the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Museum, 1989. p. 2

Neils, Jenifer. Goddess and Polis: The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens : [Exhibition]. Hanover, N.H.: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1992. p. 79

Langdon, Susan Helen. From Pasture to Polis: Art in the Age of Homer. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993. pp. 87-91, cat. 20.

Kozloff, Arielle, and Nino Urushadze. "Animal Style Bronze Art and Its Closest Parallels: A Bronze Belt and Axe Head." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 5 (1994) p. 127, fig. 10 www.jstor.org

Wilder, Jesse Bryant, Vernard Foley, Philip Neuman, and Gloria Wilder. Antigone & the Greek World. Cleveland, OH: Nexus, 1997. p. 13

Coldstream, J. N. Greek Geometric Pottery: A Survey of Ten Local Styles and Their Chronology. Exeter, Devon: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2008. p. 58, XI.6

Oakley, John H., "Women in Athenian Ritual and Funerary Art," pp. 335-341 (ill. Fig. 1) in Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens, eds. Nikos E. Kaltsas and H. A. Shapiro (New York, N.Y.: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA) in collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 2008).

Exhibition history

From Pature to Polis: Art in the Age of Homer, Museum of Art and Archaeology, Columbia, Missouri (October 9, 1993- December 5, 1993).

Juxtapositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art (September 11-October 10, 1965).