Attributed to the Manchester Class Painter. Figurative kantharos, Attic, Greek, c. 470 BC. Pottery. Height 21.2 cm. Bagot Arqueología - Ancient Art at Brafa Art Fair, Brussels, 21-29 january 2017.

A figurative red-figure style pottery vase of the kantharos type. It was made from a mould in two pieces which were later joined together. The line of union can still be seen on the sides. The body of the vessel represents the head of a satyr with the short wide neck of the vessel rising above it and with an outward-curving lip. A flat handle is located on the back of the vase.

The satyr has a thick beard painted in black slip with incised wavy vertical lines. The two pointy ears, outlined also in black, stand out from the head. The almond-shaped eyes are wide-open in an archaic style, looking fixedly forward. They are worked in relief and framed by eyelashes and eyebrows in the same intense black. The nose is small and round, with a long flowing moustache below it painted in brown. This partly covers the purple-painted lips. A band of wool, depicted by a chain of white dots in relief, circles the head above the forehead. As usual with satyrs, the head is bald although there is some hair remaining on the sides painted in black. 

The surface of the neck of the vase above this head is painted with a figurative scene. We can see a naked satyr with a tail and the same facial characteristics described above. He appears to be running and jumping, chasing a maenad. She is depicted running away from him with her head turned back to look at the creature, and her pleated gown flowing behind her. The artist has painted floral decorations in the form of palmettes on either side of the scene.

This amusing scene is closely related to the vessel and to the head of the satyr. All the elements work together, as satyrs are masculine creatures that accompany Pan and Dionysus in Greek mythology, roaming around forests and mountains. In this mythology they are often related to sexual appetite, and painters of vessels used to represent them, often with a permanent erection, alongside nymphs and maenads.

In visual arts and literature the satyr was often seen as the antithesis to the rational and controlled Greek man. As in this case, the satyr was represented along with nymphs and maenads. Maenads, the name which in Greek means “those who rave”, were divine female beings closely related to Dionysus. They were portrayed as frenzied wild women with whom it was impossible to reason. The early ones were nymphs who reared and cared for the god, and later were possessed by him, excited by him to mystical madness. Both satyrs and maenads took part in the orgiastic cult of Dionysus, the god of wine, and in dionystic rites. This god was called the “Liberator”, as he freed people from their normal selves through frenzy, ecstasy and wine. The divine mission of Dionysus was to mix the music of the aulos, and to drive away cares and worries. For this reason it is common to see him represented along with the satyrs and maenads on pottery vases to be used to hold intoxicating liquid. 

This vase is one of the best known within its rare type, both for its quality and its state of preservation. It has been attributed to the Painter “Manchester Class”, of whose work only one similar vessel is known, and which is documented in the Beazley archive of Greek vases CVA (Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum). By the same token there are very few known figurative kantharoi. Only twenty three are recorded in this same archive with portrayals of satyrs, similar to this piece in question. 

A kantharos or drinking cup is a vessel type used for drinking in Greek and Etruscan civilization. In its iconic form it is characterised by a bowl with two large and high-swung vertical handles on its sides which extend above the lip of the vessel and then fall down to be inserted near the top of the long vertical foot. It was much developed in Greek pottery and was present in most of its principal periods. This type of vessel bears little relationship with the typical pottery pitcher made from porous clay which allows the liquid inside it, water in general, to remain cool, and which some archaeology manuals and arts terms designate as pitchers or “canters”.

Red-figure pottery was one of the most important figurative styles of Greek production. It developed in Greece around the year 530 BC and was used until the 3rd Century BC. It took the place of the previously dominant style of black-figure pottery within a few decades. The technical base was the same in both cases, but in the red-figure pieces the colour was reversed, so that the figures stood out against a dark background as if they were lit up by theatrical lighting, following a more natural scheme. The painters who worked with black figures were forced to keep motifs clearly separated one from the other and to limit the complexity of the illustration. In contrast, the red-figure technique allowed greater freedom. Each figure was silhouetted against a dark background allowing the painters to render anatomic details with greater exactitude and variety. 

The technique consisted of painting motifs on a still moist piece, using a transparent glossy slip which, on firing, took on an intense black colouration. The motifs were therefore invisible before the firing and so painters had to work completely from memory without seeing the result of their work beforehand. Once the piece had been fired the zones not covered by the slip retained the reddish tone of the clay, while those that had been “painted” with the slip took on a dense, brilliant black colouration. 

Attribution made by Dr. Michael Padgett, Curator of Ancient Art at Princeton University Art Museum, USA.

With Thermoluminescence test. 

Provenance: A private collection, Belgium, acquired in the 1970s. 

Exhibition: - TEFAF, Maastricht, 2015, exhibited by the Harmakhis Galerie. - Masterpiece, London, 2016, exhibited by the Safani Gallery Inc.

Bagot Arqueología - Ancient Art - Classical and Egyptian Antiquities. Consell de Cent 278, 08007 Barcelona, Spain