In the center of this magnificent scene, the seated bride is shown with a harp. She looks up towards a little Eros who levitates with two fruits in his hands. The attendant with torches at the far left indicates that it is evening. The other women hold a fillet (band) and caskets. The figures on the reverse and on the stand may be additional companions of the bride. Although the function of the lebes gamikos has not been definitively explained, it certainly is a nuptial vase and, like the loutrophoros, probably served as a container for water.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta lebes gamikos (round-bottomed bowl with handles and stand used in weddings)
Artist:Attributed to the Washing Painter
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 430–420 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 22 5/16 in. (56.7 cm) diameter 10 1/4 in. (26 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1916
Accession Number:16.73
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1916. "Recent Accessions of Greek Vases." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11(12): p. 255, fig. 4.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 125, fig. 80, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A., Marjorie J. Milne, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1922. Shapes of Greek Vases. New York.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1926. Ancient Furniture: A History of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Furniture. p. 98, n. 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 157, fig. 107, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 157, fig. 107, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1933. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 5th ed. pp. 43–44, fig. 52, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Marjorie J. Milne. 1935. Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases. p. 11, fig. 73, New York: Plantin Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall. 1936. Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 144, pp. 181–82, pls. 147, 174, New Haven: Yale University Press.
McClees, Helen and Christine Alexander. 1941. The Daily Life of the Greeks and Romans: As Illustrated in the Classical Collections, 6th ed. pp. 43–44, fig. 52, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 102, 244, pl. 84b, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 1126, no. 6, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Boardman, John. 1989. Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Classical Period, a Handbook. fig. 207, London: Thames and Hudson.
West, Martin Litchfield. 1992. Ancient Greek Music. pp. 71ff., pl. 22, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Sgourou, Marina. 1994. "Attic Lebetes Gamikoi." Ph.D. Diss. University of Michigan.
Reeder, Ellen D., Sally Humphreys, Prof. Mary R. Lefkowitz, Francois Lissarrague, Prof. Margot Schmidt, Prof. H. Alan Shapiro, Christianne Sourvinou-Inwood, Prof. Andrew F. Stewart, Froma Zeitlin, Carol Benson, and Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway. 1995. "Women in Classical Greece." Pandora: Women in Classical Greece. p. 70, fig. 18, Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery.
Moore, Mary B. 2002. "Less is More." Essays in Honor of Dietrich von Bothmer, Mr. Andrew J. Clark and Dr. Jasper Gaunt, eds. p. 235, pl. 63c, Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Stichting, Amsterdam.
Bundrick, Sheramy. 2005. Music and Image in Fifth-century Athens. fig. 19, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
