On view
Ancient Mediterranean Art
Red-figure Lekythos Fragment: Woman at an Altar,
ca. 490–480 BCE
attributed to the Berlin Painter
Greek, Attic
2000-149
This fragment from a lekythos, a vessel intended to hold a small amount of perfumed oil, preserves most of the vase’s decoration. A single woman stands before a stone altar, holding a wine jug in her right hand and a branch in her left. She is dressed in a cloak (himation), which falls in carefully draped folds over her tunic (chiton). She wears earrings and a headcloth, from which the curls of her hair emerge to frame her face. A delicately decorated incense burner stands on top of the altar. The woman seems moments away from beginning her ritual, perhaps preparing to purify her hands with water, to light the incense and release its perfumed smoke, or to pour from her jug a libation, a liquid offering, onto the altar.
More Context
Handbook Entry
This fragment from a lekythos, an oil bottle, preserves most of the vase’s decoration. A woman, tall and slender, stands before a stone altar. She holds a wine jug in her right hand and a branch in her left. She is dressed in a chiton and himation and wears earrings and a head-cloth, from which the curls of her hair emerge. An incense burner stands on top of the altar. The attribution to the Berlin Painter, an anonymous Attic vase-painter of the first quarter of the fifth century B.C., is based on details of the drapery and anatomy, and the distinctive ornamental ground line.
More About This Object
Information
Title
Red-figure Lekythos Fragment: Woman at an Altar
Dates
ca. 490–480 BCE
Maker
attributed to the Berlin Painter
Medium
Ceramic
Dimensions
pres. h. 19.6 x pres. w. 9.2 x th. 0.4 cm (7 11/16 × 3 5/8 × 3/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Jasper Gaunt in memory of Jill Gannon
Object Number
2000-149
Culture
Period
Given to the Museum by Jasper Gaunt in 2000
Fragment from a Red-figure lekythos: woman standing at an altar
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 2000," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 60 (2001): p. 66-93., p. 90
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 313 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 365
- Diane Harris Cline, The Greeks: an illustrated history, (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2016).
- J. Michael Padgett, et. al,The Berlin Painter and his world: Athenian vase-painting in the early fifth century B.C., (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2017), cat. no. 57
