Close-Looking: Red-figure volue krater: Medea at Eleusis, ca 340–330 B.C.
This vessel, dating to about 340–330 B.C., is from Apulia, a region of southern Italy where a distinctive regional variant of Athenian red-figure ceramic painting flourished from about 440 to 300 B.C. The term “red-figure” refers to the way in which the figures are “reserved” in the red clay of the vessel, while the background and details are painted with black slip, a refined, liquefied clay that fires black in the kiln.
A vase of this shape is called a krater, from the ancient Greek word meaning “to mix.” Meant for the mixing of water with wine, a krater features handles, a deep body, and a large mouth.
One of the most striking features of this vessel is its size. It stands at over three feet tall (100.1 cm) and has a rim diameter well over a foot (37.2 cm).
Kraters of such extraordinary size were made primarily for funerary purposes and came with an opening at the bottom. The opening would have made such vessels’ use as kraters impossible, though they could have been used to offer liquid libations to the dead. The foot of this particular vase has been closed.
This vessel is one of approximately eighty attributed to an anonymous artist known as the Darius Painter, an Apulian vase-painter active during the fourth century B.C.
The Darius Painter obtained his name from a krater he painted that shows Darius, the Persian king. He is known for presenting rare myths, sometimes in alternative versions. One side of this vase shows a variant of the Medea myth that has not survived in textual form. The most common version known today comes from the playwright Euripides’s tragedy, Medea, first produced in 405 B.C. Medea, a princess of the “barbarian” kingdom of Colchis, in what is today Georgia, assists Jason, the Greek hero and legendary leader of the Argonauts, in his quest for the golden fleece, afterward marrying him. In Euripides’s play, when Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth, Medea takes vengeance by murdering Jason’s new wife as well as her own two young sons. In the version found on Princeton’s vase, the children apparently have survived.
On the obverse, the principal side of the vase, are represented Medea, her children, and figures identified with the mystery cult of the Eleusinian goddesses of the grain harvest, Demeter and her daughter Persephone. The most important Greek mystery cult, the Eleusinian Mysteries had a long existence, and exerted considerable influence on other cults. The other side of the vase depicts figures and activities associated with Dionysos, the god of wine and the theater. The wine god was thought to have been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, and he and Demeter were often worshipped together.
