Greek Red-Figure Hydria by Varrese Painter

This hydria is remarkable for its size and highly refi ned decoration. As usual in these Western regions, it has no bottom because it was only used for a funerary purpose. The red fi gure decoration is richly embellished with details in added white (clothes, vegetation, subsidiary decorations, etc.) and golden yellow (bronze or gold objects, decorations, etc.), which are well preserved.

Two friezes, on the shoulder and the belly, adorn the front face of the vessel while, on the opposite face, a large vegetal pattern, rigorously structured, features superimposed palmettes and volutes. The scene on the shoulder is centered on a youthful male fi gure, seated on a boulder and crowned by Eros; a zither is placed at his feet (is it Apollo?). Six women, seated or standing upright, surround him, depicted in very different attitudes: some carry containers, a fan or instruments (xylophone), others converse. The lower frieze, separated by an X-shape pattern with volutes painted by the handles, only shows female fi gures at their toilet, assisted by their servants: two of them watch themselves in a mirror, one opens a box, another one holds a leafy branch and a patera. Objects are painted on the black background of the scene: a basket in the foreground, garlands, paterae, crowns.

Known for a long time, this piece has been attributed to the Varrese Painter (named after a tomb in Canosa, where many works of this artist were buried) by A.D. Trendall. He is one of the most important fi gures in Apulian vase painting from the mid-fourth century B.C., whose infl uence has spread to workshops as famous as that of Darius Painter’s.

His style, very distinctive and easily recognizable, mainly offers scenes composed of many fi gures, often with solemn and severe features; his draperies are regular and furrowed with groups of parallel folds (mostly visible on the legs), while small concave pleats adorn the chest of the women.

Among his fi gures, some repeatedly appear in his works, without any changes: such is the case on this hydria, with the type of the woman standing upright, dressed in a long chiton, slightly stepping backward on one leg whose outline is visible under the fabric (upper register, second woman from the left), and of the woman looking forward, her leg raised on a boulder, an arm on her knee (upper frieze, last woman on the right).

Whole, but reassembled from a number of fragments.

Formerly British private collection, collected ca. 1970’s

TRENDALL A.D. – CAMBITOGLOU A., Second Supplement to The Red-figured Vases of Apulia, Part I, London, 1991 88, no. 30, c, pl. XV, 4. TRENDALL A.D., Red-Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London, 1989, fi g. 172.

On this painter, see: TRENDALL A.D. – CAMBITOGLOU A., The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Vol. 1, Early and Middle Apulian, Oxford, 1978, pp. 335-352. TRENDALL A.D., Red-Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, London, 1989, pp. 83-84.