Radocsay Dénes - Gerevich Lászlóné szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 31. (Budapest,1968)

BOTHMER, DIETRICH von: An Amphora'by Exekias

1 I. Amphora by Exekias, detail. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts The amphora in Budapest was know as early as 1842, when the two Viennese painters, Joseph Büchner and Wolfgang Böhm made water-colors of the Fejérváry collection. Two water-colors and a sketch of the shape are preserved in the portfolio «Liber Antiquitatis» which is kept in the Hungarian National Museum (Fig. 8—9). These artistic efforts do scant justice to the style of the Attic vase-painters, but they are an important document since they show all the misleading restorations and the alien foot. The restorations, which have since been removed, are typical of Italian work of the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This in turn leads to the assumption, at present not more than an educated guess, that the provenance may well be Vulci. This vase was not sold with the Fejérváry collection in Paris in 1868, but passed into the possession of György Rath, whose bronzes were auctioned at Sotheby's on June 19th, 1891. The amphora, however, came after his death to the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest, from which it passed into the Museum of Fine Arts in 1948. It now bears the accession number 50.189. The height with the alien foot is 59.5 cm.; the diameter of the body is 39.8 cm.; the diameter of the mouth is 24.8 cm. The pictures on the amphora are in two panels, surmounted by a chain of palmettes and lotuses, of which there are thirteen elements on the obverse; on the reverse most of the border is missing, but we can tell from the section preserved that the palmette-lotus chain ended in a half-palmette. Below each handle is a five-fronded palmette in a reserved escutcheon (Fig. 11). The obverse shows the departure of a war chariot (Fig. 12/a/b/c). The charioteer, a youth clad in the traditional long chiton, his Boeotian shield, emblazoned with a white and two red balls, on his back, stands in the chariot, while his companion,