Apulian Loutrophoros from Taras
Louvre MNB 1148 Painter and Painter of Vienna 113 (active c. 340-330 BC) · c. 340-330 BC
Tall and slender, with volute handles rising high above a narrow mouth, this red-figure loutrophoros was made in the Greek colony of Taras, modern Taranto, around three hundred and forty to three hundred and thirty BC. On the front of the body a small shrine, or naiskos, with Ionic columns houses a seated woman, while a servant approaches with a fan and a casket, a scene of mourning typical of Apulian funerary vases. On the neck a winged Eros, wearing a diadem, earrings and bracelets, sits on a flower holding a ribbon, and women's heads emerge from flowering scrolls on the shoulder. Look for the added white and red on jewellery, leaves, mirrors and the flesh of the women.
A loutrophoros held water for the ritual bath before a wedding, and in Athens it marked the graves of those who died unmarried; in southern Italy the shape became a favourite tomb offering. Scholars attribute the decoration to two hands from the same Tarentine workshop, the painter named after this very vase, the Louvre MNB 1148 Painter, and the Painter of Vienna 113. The vase was found in southern Italy and was purchased by the Louvre in 1876.
Did You Know? One of the two painters credited with this vase has no known name and is called simply the Louvre MNB 1148 Painter, after the entry number of this very object.
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