AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED LEKYTHOS

Hermonax is considered one of three major pupils of the Berlin Painter (the others are the Providence Painter the Achilles Painter). His signature is preserved on ten vases: four stamnoi, five pelikai and one cup. Four of his lekythoi, in addition to this example, have only an egg pattern at the base of the neck. Hermonax favored pursuit scenes, the komos, Dionysiac subjects and departure scenes (see J.H. Oakley, “Associates and Followers of the Berlin Painter,” in J.M. Padgett, ed., The Berlin Painter and His World, pp. 72-74).

On a red-figured lekythos from Gela, now in Palermo, Poseidon moves to the right in pursuit of a woman (see no. 353 in J. Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Archaic Period). While the lekythos presented here features only a single figure of a woman moving to the right but looking back, the pose and style has much in common with the woman on the Palermo lekythos, thus suggesting that even in the absence of a protagonist, she too is in flight. Here, she wears a long chiton with grouped vertical lines indicating folds and a himation over her shoulders, concealing the chignon at the nape of her neck. She extends her right hand back and pulls on the edge of her himation with her left hand. A coiled bracelet adorns each wrist, and she wears a circular earring. Her hair is bound in a diadem surmounted by lanceolate leaves. A meander band serves as the groundline.