Apulian Red-Figure Krater with Mascarons

A: nude youth seated in a naiskos, with his left hand resting on a shield, and a bird perched on his upraised right hand. Above him, to left, is a muscled cuirass with a red lining. Beside it is a petasos, now partly vanished. In the field at left is a fillet, and below to right, an oinochoe on its side. Outside, to left, stands a nude youth with a wreath around his head, a cloak over his left shoulder, wearing shoes, and holding a staff in his right hand. In the field behind him is a rosette, and, above to left, an ivy leaf. At the right is a woman wearing a sleeveless chiton and resting her left arm on a pillar. She holds a mirror in her right hand, a wreath in her left. In the field in front of her is a fillet; behind, a rosette.

B: two women dressed in sleeveless chitons at a stele, which rises from a rectangular plinth and is decorated with white stripes at the top and tied with a black fillet through which a white one is looped. The woman at left is approaching with a fan in her upraised left hand and a bunch of grapes in her right. The other moves away from the stele, but turns her head back toward it and carries a mirror in her right hand and a situla in her left. A thyrsos rests against her left arm, and a fillet hangs in the field beside the stele.

The krater has a broad mouth, with an overhanging lip in two degrees; fillet at join of mouth to neck; concave neck, with upper part slightly offset; sloping shoulder; ovoid body. High volute handles, flanged in section, above vertical loop handles; on the volutes, plastic masks; plastic swan heads at join to shoulder. Pedestal foot with edge in two degrees and with narrow indented band at join to body.

A, side of lip: egg pattern; under lip: wave, white bead and reel on black. Neck: reserved key meander outlined with white between two reserved bands; frontal female head in added white wearing saccos, with radiate stephane, in elaborate floral setting; white buds, flowers, and spiraling tendrils. Shoulder: black tongues with narrow black stripes between them; below, egg pattern between reserved bands.

B, side of lip: egg pattern; under lip: wave. Neck: black band; berried laurel with central rosette between reserved bands; large central palmette-fan flanked by scrolls with smaller fans. Below handles: two large superposed palmette-fans with side scrolls and fans.

A and B, around body below pictures: meander band interrupted by quartered and dotted squares. Handle-medallions: A, heads of Io in white, with dilute glaze for hair, horns, and facial details. B, heads of Io with faces in added red and hair, horns, and facial details in black.

After Jentoft-Nilsen, M. R. and Trendall, A.D., CVA Malibu 3 (1990).