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The treatment of the drapery becomes more varied, and there is a greater play of fold.

Cases 17-24. Vases of the finest period, of the middle of the fifth century. E 453 (Case 17), a banquet scene, is finely drawn and in admirable preservation. E 316 (Case 20) has another attempted full face. E 196 (Case 23) has a rude attempt at a three-quarter face. Towards the finest period, represented by this group, the stiff parallel lines hardly occur on the drapery, which, even when treated as falling in straight folds, is handled with more feeling for texture. The profile face continues predominant, and the eyeball is at length shown completely in profile.

Cases 25, 26. Vases of polychrome ware associated with the Attic red-figure style of the latter part of the fifth century. There is a free use of white, together with a more sparing use of blue, red and green. Accessory ornaments are added in relief, with clay made into a paste, and are usually gilded, though in many cases the gilding is lost. The white forms a foundation for further line drawing. In this group, with the increasing use of white, there is a diminution in scale, and an increasing triviality in the themes. Young children, or Cupids at play, become a favourite subject.

Cases 27-30. Greek vases of various wares, for the most part excavated in the Cyrenaica, especially at Teucheira (near Benghazi in African Tripoli), by the late Mr. George Dennis. The red-figure vases are probably of Athenian fabric (of a comparatively late period) and exported from Athens. The style is florid, the drapery is drawn with complete freedom, the use of the three-quarter face occurs, and whites and blues are used freely to heighten the effects.

Cases 31-35. Red-figure vases from the tombs of Cameiros in Rhodes, which also appear to be of Athenian fabric. Among the interesting subjects are:

E 372 (Case 33). Athenè finds the boy Erichthonios looking out of his basket, which had been opened against her commands, by the daughters of Cecrops.

Case 36. A vase, acquired in 1898, from the Tyszkiewiez collection. A winner in a torch race stands at an altar, where he is crowned with a fillet by Victory. Two other torch-runners are also seen. The subject may be compared with the reliefs in the Phigaleian Room (see above, p. 62). Signed round the foot in unusually bold letters by Nikias, son of Hermocles of Anaphlystos.

Below, a recently acquired vase offers an example of a curious detail in technique. The three winged figures have no internal drawing, since the lines were superimposed on a white layer, now lost. Compare E 244 in Case 39.

Cases 37-40. Athenian vases of the end of the fourth century B.C., in a free but careless style. There is a free use of whites, and hasty drawing.

Cases 41, 42. White Athenian lekythi, and other vases. (Compare the adjoining Table-case F.) The lekythos with an armed warrior, in Case 41, is in effect a transition from the black-figure

style. The flesh is executed in black silhouette, as in black-figure vases, while the drapery and armour are drawn in outline on the

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Fig. 120.-The Birth of Athenè, as represented on a red-figure vase.

E 410.

light ground. The jug D 14 (with Athenè pouring wine for Heracles) is remarkable for its fine and delicate drawing.

Cases 43, 44. Athenian vases, moulded in various shapes, such as heads or busts, double heads, heads of birds and animals,

crabs' claws, and the like. The vases are moulded, and in part brilliantly coloured with red and other colours, while parts are in the normal red-figure style of decoration.

Cases 45, 46. of a small size, and Cases 47-54. The projecting cases contain examples of the finest style, of the middle of the fifth century B.C., corresponding to those on the opposite side of the room. All the vases in these cases deserve study. The following may be noted as specially interesting.

Later vases of the fine style, for the most part with fine and pure drawing.

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Case 47. E 460, Crater. A lyre-player, or perhaps a poetlaureate, in the presence of Athenè, a judge, and two Victories. This design has been made familiar as the basis of the Apotheosis of Homer relief by Flaxman and Wedgwood. (An example may be seen on a 'Pegasus Vase' in the Ceramic Room.)

Case 48. E 492, Crater. The subject is Hermes confiding the infant god Dionysos to the care of the Nymphs of Nysa.

Case 49. E 182. The birth of Erichthonios. The earthgoddess, Gaia, half emerging from the ground, holds up the earthborn child to Athenè, who receives him into a mantle which she stretches out with both hands.

E 447, Stamnos. Seilenos a prisoner before Midas. This is a subsequent incident in the story of the capture of Seilenos mentioned above (p. 216).

Case 50. E 271, Amphora. Mousaios between Terpsichorè and Melousa.

Case 51. Stamnos from the Morrison collection. This vase, remarkable on account of its admirable condition, has a scene of combat between a horseman and a foot soldier, aided by an unarmed youth.

Case 52. E 410, Pelike. Birth of Athenè (Fig. 120, cf. pp. 24, 219). As in the black-figure vases, Athenè is a doll-like figure springing from the head of Zeus. The principal attendant figures are, on each side, Hephaestos and Eileithyia, while beyond are Artemis, Poseidon, Victory, and others.

Cases 55-60. Transitional vases, between the early, severe red-figured group and the vases of the finest style.

Case 59. E 178, Hydria.

Judgment of Paris.

An interesting rendering of the

THE FOURTH VASE ROOM.*

SUBJECT:—THE DECLINE OF GREEK VASE PAINTING : LATER POTTERY.

INTRODUCTION TO THE LATER RED-FIGURE VASES.

The vases exhibited in this room illustrate the later developments of Greek vase painting in various directions. A large part of the room is taken up with the later red-figure vases, produced for the most part in South Italy, but it also contains various independent groups.

The survival of the black-figure style can still be traced in the series of eleven Panathenaic amphorae, exhibited on cases and pedestals in the Fourth Vase Room (see below).

Among the later red-figure vases, as illustrated in this room, it will be observed that the use of white and purple once more comes into favour. Its re-introduction was begun in the later Athenian vases, and it is now more extensively used by the Italian painters. The drawing becomes weak and loose, but at the same time there is a great facility in the rendering of all positions of the figure. As regards the choice of subjects, myths of the gods and heroic legends are no longer predominant. Where they occur they often illustrate some special literary version of the legend, and not the traditional type current among the artists. In general, the subjects chosen become more trivial. In particular, a woman at her toilet, surrounded by effeminate Erotes, is repeated again and again. Other scenes are connected with funeral rites, with the banquet, and not unfrequently with the comic stage. The red-figure vases in this room probably belong to the fourth and early part of the third centuries B.C. The practice of red-figure painting is supposed to have become extinct about the middle of the third century B.C.

Artists' signatures are rare in the later periods, and the only signed vases in the Fourth Vase Room are the following:

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* The vases in this room (classes F and G) are described in the Catalogue of Vases, Vol. IV., 1896 (16s.). The Roman provincial wares are described in the Catalogue of Roman Pottery, 1908 (£2); and the lamps in the (forthcoming) Catalogue of Lamps, all by H. B. Walters. The Catalogues can be borrowed from the commissionaire. (The vases in class B are described in Vol. II. of the Catalogue of Vases.)

The use of the kalos-name is entirely abandoned.

The principal groups of vases in this room have been classed as follows, the classification being mainly based on the districts in which the different groups are most frequently discovered. From the class-letter and number on a vase it may easily be ascertained to which group it is assigned:

B. Black-figure (Panathenaic) vases, further described below.

F.

Later red-figure vases, subdivided as follows:

(1) F 1-148. Vases of Athenian style, produced either at Athens, or in South Italy, in close adherence to Athenian models. (2) F 149-156. Vases in style of Assteas. See the vase of Python (Pedestal 1, below).

(3) F 157-187. Vases in Lucanian style. These are redfigure vases, not far removed from the direct imitations of Athenian ware, though partaking in some measure of the florid decoration of the following classes, with white and yellow accessories, used rather sparingly. The heads are often large, and the eyes staring.

(4) F 188-268. Vases in Campanian style. The colour of the clay is markedly pale, and often approaches to drab. Red, however, is freely used, sometimes with the intention of colouring the ground to the normal tint, and sometimes as a local colour. White is also used with great freedom. The execution is usually rough and hasty, and the subjects are of little interest. (See below, Cases 14-23.)

(5) F 269-477. Vases in the style of Apulia. To this class belong most of the large and floridly decorated vases in this Room. The decoration is usually very copious, and the whole of the field is covered. Elaborate architectural structures, such as the central tombs on the sepulchral vases, often occupy the middle of the subject. There is a free use of white, and much drawing with yellow washes upon the whites.

The remainder of the wares in this room, which are for the most part black glazed vases variously decorated, and wares of the Roman period, are described as they occur, below.

We turn first to the group of Panathenaic Vases, referred to above, which are in Standard-cases B and D, and are the following:

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