Fragment of a mixing bowl (krater)
Adolphseck Painter (active ca. 385-ca. 375 BCE) (attributed to)
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
[Museum inv. no.: 61.112]
Item location
Description
Commentary from museum website: Fragment of a Bell-Krater.The concert of Apollo. Zeus is reclining to the left on a groundline of cream-colored dots, his left arm and side preserved. His himation is wrapped around his waist, and he holds his yellow eagle-topped scepter in the crook of his left arm. Nike or Eros is at the upper right (only wing tip preserved), carrying an embroidered, tasseled fillet. Apollo stands below them at the center, wearing a bordered cape, a broad belt (yellow with black dots), and a richly decorated musician's chiton with long sleeves, embroidered with palmettes, key-pattern, laurel wreaths, and egg-and-dart. Such a rich costume is not inappropriate for a god, but it may also reflect the influence of theatrical costume or the festal gowns worn by mortal citharodes. The god's face is in three-quarter view, and the artist has taken pains with the relief lines of his curly hair and the faint suggestions of budding sideburns. He holds his broad, white kithara erect by the strap above his left wrist, stopping the strings with the finger of his left hand as he strikes them with the plektron in his right hand. The strings are brown where they cross the body of the kithara.
The Adolphseck Painter is named for a vase in Schloss Fasanerie, Adolphseck (inv. 179: RVAp, I, p. 72, no. 4/51). He was a close associate of the Schiller and Prisoner Painters and like them was a follower of the Tarporley Painter and worked in the Plain style. He painted mainly bell-kraters, most of which have Dionysiac scenes.
Iconclass
92gods ~ classical mythology
92B38(Lyre)
attributes of Apollo: lyre
48C7321
lyre, cithara, psaltery
48C75
making music; musician with instrument
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Kithara [4940] (with strap)Plectrum [6074]
RIdIM images
