This vase has a distinctive shape characterized by an elongated ovoid body on a thick disk foot, an offset flaring neck, an inverted lip with grooves for a lid, and handles that rise from the shoulder and curve below the height of the mouth to join the neck. The type is called a Nolan amphora, after Nola, Italy, the site where the first examples of this shape were discovered and where this example was also found. It probably contained wine, olives, or oil. Nolan amphorae are small, usually less than fifteen inches high. Figures are drawn between the handles on the front and back. Below, a length of meander pattern provides a ground line.
Date
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34.3 × 18.2 cm (13 1/2 × 7 1/8 in.); Diam.: 18.2 cm (7 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Philip D. Armour and Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number
1889.17
IIIF Manifest
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William M.R. French, Notes [on a] journey to Europe with Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Hutchinson starting from New York Sat’y Mch. 9, 1889- , (unpublished manuscript, Art Institute of Chicago Archives), p. 24.
Art Institute of Chicago, Preliminary Catalogue of Metal Work, Graeco-Italian Vases, and Antiquities, December 9, 1889 (Chicago: Early and Halla Printing Company, 1889), p. 41, no. 337.
Daniel Catton Rich, “Five Red-Figures Vases in the Art Institute of Chicago,” American Journal of Archaeology, 34 (1930), pp. 162-171.
J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 988, no. 9.
J.H. Oakley, The Achilles Painter (Mainz 1997), p. 116 no. 12, pls. 10a and 45e.
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 18.
Elizabeth Hahn Benge, “From Aegina to Andronicus: A Survey of Coinage at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Historia Mundi n. 5 (January 2016), p. 202.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Number 6, March 13, 1980 - May 13, 1980.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “The Human Figure in Greek and Roman Art: From the Permanent Collection,” Part 2, Gallery 120A, January 13, 1989 - September 24, 1989.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art,” Gallery 151, November 11, 2012 - present.
Said to be found in Nola, 1881 [Old Register at the Art Institute of Chicago]. Augusto Mele, Naples, Italy; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago through J.C. Fletcher as agent, 1889; price reimbursed by Charles Hutchinson and Philip D. Armour, 1889.
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