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Black-figure Olpe

Artist Gorgon Painter (Greek)
Date590-580 B.C.E.
MediumTerracotta
DimensionsOverall: 10 3/4 inches (27.31 cm)
Credit LineGift of Bertha Rockwell Venanzi
Object number59-22
On View
On view
Gallery Location
  • 103
Collections
Exhibition History

Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections, Art Institute of Chicago, December 22, 1979-February 24, 1980, no. 19.

Gallery Label
The female-headed bird on this vase is called a “siren.” With their lovely songs these mythological creatures charmed and tempted unwitting sailors who, following them to nearby shores, died.
Provenance

Bertha Rockwell Venanzi (1874-1970), Rome, by 1959;

 

Her gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1959.

Published References

“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, July – September, 1959,” The Art Quarterly 22, no. 4 (Winter 1959): 384-85. 

 

John Beazley, Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-figure Vase-painters and to Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 7, no. 13 quater. 

 

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 33.

 

Warren Moon, “19. Attic Black-Figure Olpe,” in Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1979), 30-31, no. 19.

 

Lucilla Burn and Ruth Glynn, Beazley Addenda, Paralipomena: Additional References to “ABV, ARV2 & Paralipomena” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 7, no. 13 quater. 

 

Andrew J. Clark, “Attic black-figured olpai and oinochoai” (PhD diss., New York University, 1992), 9, no. 10; 41-42, 46.  

Robert Cohon with Karin Jones, “Ancient Greek,” in Ceramics: Highlights from the Collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 55.

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.


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