Theatrical Performance – I – Actor as Maenad
Actor in disguise performing a “sparagmos” scene with a musician accompanying his performance by playing a double aulos.
A maenad wearing a short chiton leaving her breasts naked, dances ecstatically with a wide stride and flowing hair to the sound of a double aulos player. With her head tilted to the right, she looks straight out of the picture, holding a bleeding deer leg in her raised left hand and a sword in her lowered right. Above her head the inscription (KΑΛΟΣ). The aulos player is dressed in a long sleeve chiton decorated with circles and dots; he wears a dotted band and a wreath painted in red and a band, phorbeia, to hold the mouthpiece of his aulos.
This scene is mostly interpreted as an early representation of a tragic theater performance. The aulos player appears in the typical stage costume, the ankle-length, richly decorated sleeve chiton: the costume of the musician of a theater choir. The maenad, although not recognizable at first glance, is an actor in disguise. The bare breast is usually only found only in hetaerae. The hairstyle of the maenad with the upright hair is striking. A mask may be indicated by this detail.
CAV /( CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Athenian red-figure pelike
H 36,2 cm; D. 25 cm.
Attributed to an Earlier Mannerist Painter
ca. 470–460 BC.
Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche inv. V.I. 3223
Theatrical Performance – I – Actor as Maenad
Actor in disguise performing a “sparagmos” scene with a musician accompanying his performance by playing a double aulos.
A maenad wearing a short chiton leaving her breasts naked, dances ecstatically with a wide stride and flowing hair to the sound of a double aulos player. With her head tilted to the right, she looks straight out of the picture, holding a bleeding deer leg in her raised left hand and a sword in her lowered right. Above her head the inscription (KΑΛΟΣ). The aulos player is dressed in a long sleeve chiton decorated with circles and dots; he wears a dotted band and a wreath painted in red and a band, phorbeia, to hold the mouthpiece of his aulos.
This scene is mostly interpreted as an early representation of a tragic theater performance. The aulos player appears in the typical stage costume, the ankle-length, richly decorated sleeve chiton: the costume of the musician of a theater choir. The maenad, although not recognizable at first glance, is an actor in disguise. The bare breast is usually only found only in hetaerae. The hairstyle of the maenad with the upright hair is striking. A mask may be indicated by this detail.
CAV /( CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Athenian red-figure pelike
H 36,2 cm; D. 25 cm.
Attributed to an Earlier Mannerist Painter
ca. 470–460 BC.
Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche inv. V.I. 3223