Attic Red-Figure Lekythos

This red-figure lekythos presents a young woman at her toilette. She glances back over her shoulder and extends her right arm, momentarily turning from contemplating herself in the mirror. The vase-painter situates her actions in a feminine setting: besides a small storage chest on the ground at the left, there is a _kalathos_, or wool basket, at the right.

The use of added white paint for the woman’s body--an unusual choice in red-figure pottery of the mid-400s B.C.-- emphasizes her nudity. Texts by ancient male authors suggest that it was inappropriate for the bodies of citizen wives to be exposed, and so this woman may be a prostitute or a _hetaera_, a woman of independent means, sought after for her charm and beauty.

This vase did not fire properly in the kiln. Much of its surface is a red-brown, rather than the standard deep black of Athenian pottery. The side of the lekythos to the right of the woman even has a "ghost" of a meander pattern band caused by touching another vase during firing.