NEAR THE TIMOKRATES PAINTER, CIRCA 470-460 B.C.

On this large lekythos the sole figural decoration consists of a standing woman holding a spear, point down, presumably to be handed to a departing warrior, her husband or son. The bright, well-preserved polychrome details employed for this figure cause her to stand out dramatically against the cream-colored white ground. The artist has used yellow-ocher for her chiton, black for her himation and hair, and so-called ‘second white’ for her flesh. Her fillet and the spearhead are in red. The scene is framed above by a band of meander, and the vessel shoulders have red-figured palmettes and tendrils below ovolo. For related polychrome details on a two-figure scene by the Timokrates Painter himself, see pl. I.A in J.H. Oakley, Picturing Death in Classical Athens.