Attic red-figure
Villa Giulia Painter stamnos with stamnoi
Museum: Oxford, Ashmolean
Size: 40.3cm high (stamnos)
Function: storage and display
Technique: red-figure
Style: classical
Subject/s: A. largely motionless women, heavily draped and garlanded with wine vine leaves, hold a skyphos (left) and play double pipes (right) around another who leans towards a low table supporting a large stamnos from which she has ladled wine into a skyphos. B. A woman wearing a decorated fillet around her head and holding a skyphos and thyrsus is framed by two companions, one (left) also holding a skyphos and the other (right) with her head thrown back as if singing; all are moving as if in dance.
Date: mid 5th c.
Analysis: the representation of a stamnos on a stamnos is a notable feature and characteristic of a group of stamnoi with similar scenes which may relate to a festival of Dionysus, god of wine. In style the motionless and widely set figures of side A are typical of an 'Academic'style of painting that seems to develop from Douris. The vase was found in Sicily at the site of Gela.
