Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology
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Work provided by University of Oregon

Teemessa covering body of Ajax

Alternative Title
  • Attic Red-Figure Kylix
  • Wine Cup with the Suicide of Ajax
Creator Display
  • attributed to Brygos Painter (Ancient Greek vase painter, active ca. 490-ca. 470 BCE)
Creator
Photographer
Date
  • -0495/-0485
Description
  • Bothmer, Dietrich von. "Aspects of a Collection," Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, June 1969. pp. 424-436. p. 427; fig. 11.; Bothmer, Dietrich von, and J. Bean. Greek Vases and Modern Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bareiss. Exh. checklist, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: 1969. p. 7, no. 87.; B0eazley, J. D. Paralipomena. Additions to Attic Black-figure Vase-painters and to Attic Red-figure Vase-painters. 2nd ed. Oxford: 1971. p. 367, no. 1 bis.; Shefton, Brian. "Agamemnon or Ajax," Revue Archeologique 24 (1973), pp. 203-218. fig. 1.; Davies, Mark I. "Ajax and Tekmessa. A Cup by the Brygos Painter in the Bareiss Collection," Antike Kunst 16, 1 (1973), pp. 60-70. pls. 9.1, and 10.; Boardman, John. Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Archaic Period. London: 1975. fig. 246.; Williams, Dyfri. "Ajax, Odysseus, and the Arms of Achilles," Antike Kunst 23 (1980), pp. 137-145. p. 137, n. 5; pls. 33, 7 and 36.1-2.; Touchefeu, Odette. "Aias I," Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (1981), pp. 312-336. pp. 325, no. 72, and 332, no. 140 (as L.69-11.35).; True, Marion, and Jiri Frel. Greek Vases. Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection. The J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu: 1983. pp. 44-45, no. 30, figs. 30a-c; p. 79, no. 152.; Burow, Johannes. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Tubingen 5 (Germany 54). Munich: 1986. Beilage 1, fig. 4.; Wescoat, Bonna D., ed. Poets and Heroes: Scenes of the Trojan War. Exh. cat, Emory University Museum of Art and Archaeology. Atlanta: 1986. pp. 52-57, no. 14.; Schefold, Karl. "Sophokles' Aias auf einer Lekythos," Antike Kunst 19 (1976). p. 72, n. 3.; "Acquisitions/1986." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 15 (1987), pp. 160 - 161, no. 7.; Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2, and Paralipomena. 2nd ed. Compiled by T. Carpenter with T. Mannack and M. Mendonca. Oxford: 1989. p. 224.; Immerwahr, Henry. Attic Script. A Survey. Oxford and New York: 1990. p. 89, n. 37, no. 553; The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 3rd ed. (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991), p. 47.; Williams, Dyfri. "Onesimos and the Getty Iliupersis," Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 5. Occasional Papers on Antiquities 7 (1991), pp. 41-64. p. 44, and p. 63, n. 33.; Touchefeu-Meynier, Odette. "Odysseus," Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae VI (1992), pp. 943-970.; Robertson, Martin. The Art of Vase Painting in Classical Athens. Cambridge: 1992. p. 95; fig. 88 (wrongly cited as 81.AE.26).; March, J. R. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 38 (1991-1993), pp. 1-36. pp. 5-6; pl. 2a.; Shapiro, H. A. Myth into Art: Poet and Painter in Classical Greece. London and New York: 1994. p. 153, fig. 108, and p. 154, fig. 109.; Buxton, Richard. Imaginary Greece: The Contexts of Mythology. Cambridge: 1994 p. 126, fig. 14.; Buxton, Richard. La Grece de l'imaginaire. Les contextes de la mythologie. Paris: 1996. p. 189; fig. 14; Towne Markus, Elana. Masterpieces of the J. Paul Getty Museum: Antiquities. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997) p. 40.; Moore, Mary B. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. The J. Paul Getty Museum 8 (USA 33). Malibu: 1998. p. 33-35, no. 49; fig. 13; pls. 418-420.; March, Jenny. Cassell Dictionary of Classical Mythology. London: 1998. p. 368, s.v. Tecmessa; fig. 136.; Brinkman, Vinzenz. "Aias der Telamonier," Der Torso, Ruhm und Raetsel (exh. cat.), Glyptotek Muenchen, January 21-March 29, 1998. Munich: 1998. Pp. 127-133. p. 132; fig. 194; Boardman, John. The History of Greek Vases. London: 2001. p. 243; fig. 268.; Hedreen, Guy. Capturing Troy: The Narrative Functions of Landscape in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Art. Ann Arbor: 2001. fig. 28, pp. 104-105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 115, 117, n. 92, 143, nn. 73,74, 178, 221, 224, 234.; The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Collections. 6th ed. (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001), p. 47.; Immerwahr, Henry. R. A Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions. Preliminary Edition. Part VI: Supplement. 2001. no. 5015.; Tsingarida, Athena. "Soif d'emotions. La representation des sentiments dans la ceramique attique des VI et V siecles av. n. ere." Revue Belge de Philologie et D'Histoire 79. Brussels, 2001. p. 16, fig. 7.; The J. Paul Getty Museum Handbook of the Antiquities Collection (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002) p. 69.; Zwierlein, Otto. Hippolytus und Phaidra: Von Euripides bis D'Annunzio (Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schoningh, 2005), pp. 26-27, abb. 5.; Sacks, David. Encyclopedia of the Anciet Greek World (New York: Facts on File, Inc, 2005) p. 17, illus.l; Neils, Jennifer. "The 'Unheroic' Corpse: Re-reading the Sarpedon Krater". In Athenian Potters and Painters, vol. 2. John H. Oakley and Olga Palagia, eds. (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2009) 212-219 p.215, fig.6
  • He must not be seen! I will cover his body, I will wrap him completely in my mantle. No one who loved him could bear to see the dark blood pouring from his nostrils and the raw wound in his breast. So declared Tekmessa when she discovered the body of her dead lover Ajax in an Athenian tragedy by the playwright Sophokles. Ajax was one of the greatest of the Greek heroes in the Trojan War. The matter of his suicide was recounted in epic poetry now lost to us, but Athenian vase-painters in the early 400s B.C. frequently drew on this tradition in showing his death. The interior of this red-figure cup attributed to the Brygos Painter shows Ajax impaled on his sword and Tekmessa running to cover the body. In a unique representation of the suicide, the sword enters through his back rather than the more natural position through the stomach. Beneath Ajax, the Brygos Painter attempted to convey the texture of the pebble beach where Ajax went to die. The exterior of the cup presents the events leading to Ajax's suicide. When Achilles was killed, Ajax saved his body from the Trojans, expecting to be rewarded with Achilles' armor. However, Odysseus also claimed the armor. One side of this cup shows the two heroes quarreling; on the other side, the Greek leaders cast votes in the form of stones piled in front of the opponents. The despondent Ajax clutches his bowed head, having lost by one vote. --J. Paul Getty Museum; Bareiss Loan Number: S.82.AE.27
View
  • Interior
View Date
  • 1986-04
Temporal
  • ca. 490 BCE
Coverage
  • Athens, Periféreia Protevoúsis, Greece (creation)
  • Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection (owner)
Subject
Keyword
  • Seven X Thebes
Work Type
Cultural Context
Style / Period
Material
  • terracotta
Measurements
  • Height: 11.2 cm; Diameter: 31.4 cm
Rights Holder
  • University of Oregon, Department of Classics
Identifier
  • Lowenstam_VRC_02662
Item Locator
  • Box 7, Section 12
Repository
Current Repository ID
  • 86.AE.286
Local Collection Name
Institution
Submission Date
  • 08/03/2015
Modified
  • 06/23/2023
Collections

APA

Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology, University of Oregon. (20 Apr 2024). Teemessa covering body of Ajax Retrieved from https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df693251k

MLA

Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology, University of Oregon. "Teemessa covering body of Ajax" Oregon Digital. 20 Apr 2024. https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df693251k

Chicago

Lowenstam Collection of Ancient Western Art and Archaeology, University of Oregon. "Teemessa covering body of Ajax" Oregon Digital. Accessed 2024-04-20. https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df693251k

Wiki

{{cite web | url= https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df693251k | title= Teemessa covering body of Ajax |author= |accessdate= 2024-04-20 |publisher= }}

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