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,

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

E 410.

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.

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. An interesting rendering of the Judgment of Paris.

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:

* 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:

These vases, which have already been referred to (p. 224) as prizes won at the games in Athens, were taken by the winners to their homes in Cyrenaica, Capua, or Cervetri, where they have been found. On one side of the vase the design is always a figure of Athenè drawn in what is called an archaistic manner, imitative of true archaic drawing; but on the other side of the vase the artist was free to design in the manner natural to him and his day, except only that he was required, by custom, to retain the black figures on a red ground. These designs, being exactly dated, in some instances, by the name of the Athenian archon, furnish a standard by which the vase paintings of the fourth century may be judged. While the vase in its general character adheres to the ancient type, there is a marked change in the shape, which becomes tall and slender. (Compare fig. 121 with fig. 112.)

On the shield of Athenè on B 605 is a representation of the sculptural group of the two Athenian tyrannicides, Harmodios and Aristogeiton. The original group by Antenor was carried off from Athens by Xerxes, and is said to have been restored long afterwards. Its place was taken by a new group, the work of Kritios and Nesiotes, of which copies are preserved to us in two statues at Naples (cf. p. 99), and on various coins and reliefs. B 604 is signed by the artist Kittos. The embroidery on the robe

of Athenè is especially rich on B 606.

Fig. 121.-Panathenaic
Vase (later shape).

In addition to the Panathenaic vases above described, the following objects on table-cases and pedestals on the floor of the room deserve mention :

Standard-case A. Vases from Southern Italy.

Pedestal 1. F 149, Crater, signed by the artist Fython, who is not otherwise known, but who appears to have been of the school of Assteas, a well-known painter, perhaps of Paestum. Alcmena, the mother of Heracles by Zeus, appeals to Zeus to save her from the fire which is being kindled by her husband Amphitryon and his friend Antenor. Zeus has hurled two thunderbolts at the torches, while copious rain falls from a rainbow and from the pitchers of the Hyades (rain goddesses).