Fragments of Antiquity Drawing upon Greek Vases

March 15 - December 20, 1997

The long-term special exhibition Fragments of Antiquity: Drawing upon Greek Vases is on view at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts through December 28, 1997. This exhibition, which opened on March 15, celebrates the acquisition and publication by the Art Museums of a recently acquired collection of Greek black-figure and red-figure vase fragments from 182 different vases that document almost two centuries of vase-painting, from the early sixth to the late fifth centuries B.C. The exhibition examines the vase-painting style of Greek artists in general, as well as masterworks by individual artists, including Sophilos, the Berlin Painter, Onesimos, Makron, and Douris. The exhibition also highlights the history of scholarship and interest surrounding Greek vases and the important role that vase fragments have played and continue to play in our understanding of vase painting. The exhibition features a large selection of the vase fragments shown with Greek vases from Harvard University Art Museums' permanent collection, as well as loans from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Fragments of Antiquity is organized by Aaron J. Paul, Curatorial Research Associate in the Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics, and author of the essay and catalogue publishing this collection in Harvard University Art Museums' Spring 1997 Bulletin.

Greek vases first received the attention of collectors and scholars after coming to light in the ancient tombs of Etruria and south Italy in the eighteenth century. They have become the focus of systematic, scholarly study since the beginning of the nineteenth century, when thousands were discovered at the Etruscan necropolis of Vulci and elsewhere in central Italy. Beginning in the early years of this century, John Davidson Beazley (1885-1970), one of the greatest scholars of Attic vase painting, almost single-handedly established a direction for modern scholarship on the subject-listing thousands of Attic vases categorized by artist and artistic groups. "Today, Greek vases continue to fascinate us," states Aaron Paul, "providing one of the finest assemblages of visual documents for the interpretation of Greek culture during the Archaic and Classical periods. Made primarily for domestic use, the scenes painted on these ceramics illustrate themes inspired by myth and literature, or provide views of daily life that furnish us with intimate social commentary on the people for whom they were produced. It is this particular, personal quality of the vases that makes them unique illustrations of nearly every aspect of life in ancient Greece."

The first collection of Greek vases to enter the Fogg Art Museum did so in 1895, the year the museum opened. This group of sixteen vases, sent to the Art Museum from his residence in Lewes, Sussex, England by Edward P. Warren (Harvard Class of 1883), formed the foundation of a now expansive Greek vase collection. In 1914, J. D. Beazley arrived at Harvard to examine Warren's vases, along with others that had joined the growing collection. Among the group sent by Warren in 1895 was a perfectly preserved red-figure amphora, the sides of which depicted Triton and a Nereid. The artist of the amphora remains anonymous but the style of his drawing was identifiable on other vases, notably an amphora in Berlin. One of the greatest vase painters of the late Archaic and early Classical periods, he was soon to be named "the Berlin Painter" by Beazley after this Berlin vase. The Triton and Nereid amphora is a highlight of the exhibition along with a lekythos depicting Nike, also attributed to the Berlin Painter by Beazley. Beazley made drawings of the Triton on the amphora and the Nike on the lekythos during his visit in 1914. The drawings, originally made for his study purposes, are fine enough to be considered small works of art and photographs of these drawings are displayed near these vases.

Fragments of Antiquity also includes works of art on paper from the Art Museums' collection-a drawing after a Greek vase by Eugene Delacroix, and a group of intaglios inspired by Greek vase paintings by local artist, Catherine Kernan (b.1948). These works demonstrate the role Greek vase painters' figural compositions have played in the work of artists from the nineteenth century to the present. The drawing by Delacroix is a tracing taken from an early nineteenth century engraving of a Greek vase that was formerly in the collection of Sir William Hamilton. For the first time, this engraving and the Greek vase itself are exhibited alongside the drawing by Delacroix. Kernan's nine intaglios are composed of vignettes inspired by details of Greek vases that focus on the hand as depicted on ancient Greek vases-hands playing instruments, hands holding drinking cups, and hands embracing the human figure.

Very early on in his vase-painting studies, Beazley began examining vase fragments. The result of these observations eventually led to the publication of "Disjecta Membra" ("scattered parts") in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, in 1931, and Campana Fragments in Florence, in 1933, which demonstrated the important contribution to be made to the study of vase painting by working on fragmentary vases.

"In 1995, a century after the first Greek vases entered the collection of the Art Museums, interest in Greek vase fragments was rekindled by the acquisition of a large collection of such disjecta membra," states Paul. "As important objects for teaching and learning about the art of vase painting, their incomplete nature presents challenging questions regarding vase shapes and the style and compositions that artists used for their vase paintings."

Assembled by J. Robert Guy, a vase-painting scholar now at Oxford University, this collection was acquired with the assistance of many friends who realized the importance of fragments for research, teaching, and learning about Greek vase painting.

RELATED EVENTS

Gallery Talks

Gallery Talks are free with the price of admission to the Art Museums

Sunday, April 6

with Aaron J. Paul, Exhibition Curator, Curatorial Research Associate, Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics. Fogg, 2:00 p.m.

Sunday, June 1

with Lisa Buboltz, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Fine Arts. Fogg, 2:00 p.m.

Sunday, July 13

with Amy Brauer, Diane Heath Beever Associate Curator of Ancient Art. Fogg 2:00 p.m.

Sunday, September 14

with Luann Wilkins Abrahams, Intern, Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics, Fogg, 2:00 p.m.

Saturday, October 4

with Lisa Buboltz, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Fine Arts. Fogg, 11:30 a.m.

Saturday, October 25

with David Gordon Mitten, George M. A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art. Fogg, 11:30 a.m.

Sunday, November 16

with Aaron J. Paul, Exhibition Curator, Curatorial Research Associate, Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics. Fogg, 2:00 p.m.

M. Victor Leventritt Lectures

Drawing upon Greek Vases

Monday, April 28 and Tuesday, April 29

Sackler lecture hall, 6:00 p.m., free admission

Four leading scholars in the field of Greek vase painting will present lectures on two consecutive evenings (two lectures on each evening). The series will focus on the art of Greek vase painting from the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. Lectures will address issues of connoisseurship, the importance of fragmentary vases for our understanding of vase painting, and the interpretation of scenes painted upon Greek pottery as important visual documents for our understanding of myth, literature, and daily life in ancient Greece.

Speakers include Susan Matheson, Curator of Classical Art, Yale University Art Gallery; J. Michael Padgett, Associate Curator of Classical Art, The Art Museum, Princeton University; H. Allen Shapiro, Chairperson, Department of Classics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; Dyfri Williams, Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities, The British Museum, London.