An Attic red-figure pelike

Footnotes

Provenance:
with Münzen und Medaillen A.G., Basel, 1977 (Antike Vasen, Sonderliste R, no. 50).
Dr. Dragisa Momirovic, Germany.
Greek Vases from the Momirovic Collection; Sotheby's, London, 7 July 1994, lot 340.
Private collection, Manhattan.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, New York, 18 April 2018, lot 36.
with Jean-David Cahn, Basel.
Private collection, Switzerland, acquired from the above 30 April 2020.
Beazley Archive no. 13607.

Published:
R.-M. Becker, Formen attischer Peliken von der Pionier-Gruppe bis zum Beginn der Frühklassik, Boblingen, 1977, vol. I, p. 33, no. 107a.
E. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus. Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens, New York, 1985, pp. 293–294, fig. 264, 265.
M. Robertson, 'Two Pelikai by the Pan Painter', in Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum, vol. 3, Malibu, 1986, p. 82, fig. 3, p. 83, and fn 54.
I. Peschel, Die Hetäre bei Symposium und Komos in der Attisch-Rotfigurigen Vasenmalerei des 6.-4. Jahrh. v. Chr., Frankfurt, 1987, p. 192, pl. 144.
A. Dierichs, 'Erotik in der Kunst Griechenlands', in Antike Welt no. 65, Mainz, 1988, fig.108 (A).
C. Reinsberg, Ehe, Hetärentum und Knabenliebe im antiken Griechenland, Munich, 1989, pp. 194–195, fig. 109.
M.F. Kilmer, Greek Erotica on Attic Red-Figure Vases, London, 1993, pp. 16, 88, 171 and 247, fig. R371.
N. Boymel Kampen et al., Sexuality in Ancient Art, Near East, Egypt, Greece, and Italy, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 90 and 92, fig. 39.
J. Davidson, The Greeks and Greek Love, London, 2007, pp. 435–436, ill. 49.
M. Barbanera, 'Dikaios eros?', Workshop di archeologia classica, Paesaggi, construzioni, reperti, 6, Rome, 2009, pp. 50–51 54, fig. 1.
A. Lear and E. Cantarella, Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty. Boys Were Their Gods, London/New York, 2009, p. 219, no. 4.178.
H. Parker, 'Vaseworld: Depiction and Description of Sex at Athens', in R. Blondell and K. Ormand (eds.), Ancient Sex: New Essays, Columbus, 2015, pp. 23-141, fig.1.5.
J. A. Johnson, The Greek Youthening: Assessing the Iconographic Changes within Courtship during the Late Archaic Period, Tennessee, 2015, pp. 168–170, 247, fig. 39.


Side A depicts a scene of intercrural lovemaking between an older, bearded man and a male youth, in what Davidson called 'one of the most flagrant scenes of homosexual copulation' (ibid), and Kilmer noted as 'our earliest example of actual copulation' between a man and youth (ibid, p.16). Pederastic partnerships such as this, between an erastes and an eromenos, were a widely-accepted social institution amongst the aristocracy in Archaic and Classical Athens, and were seen to offer the younger male mentorship and an initiation into the social etiquette of the upper echelons as he came of age as a citizen.

Side A also depicts a third male, likely the older male's slave, sitting to the side and holding his master's staff; his inclusion in the scene may serve to emphasise that the lovers are part of the aristocracy. The architectural column, and the strigil, sponge and aryballos which hang in the field, indicate that this scene takes place within the palaistra, i.e. a wrestling school or gymnasium. This setting is fitting both because it was a place where men were commonly nude, and their bodies perfected and admired, and also because Classical pederastic relationships included the erastes supporting, both financially and otherwise, the athletic and educational pursuits of the eromenos. For example, Xenophon's Symposium, set in 422 B.C., recounts a banquet hosted by Calias III's home in honour of his beloved Autolykos' victory in the pentathlon at the Panathenaic Games.

Side B depicts a komos scene of a youth playing the double flute behind a heavily-draped female, who is playing krotala and is likely hetaera. A ball (?) and staff hang in the field.