H EΠAIΣ KAΛΕ / The girl is beautiful
The painting shows a woman holding a distaff in her left hand. She pulls out the fibres to the spun into thread by rotation of the spindle and whorl dangling bellow. She is depicted in a long sleeved, dotted chiton, a bordered himation, and sandals, with earrings, bracelets, and hair wound into a ball on the neck and fastened with a fillet.
To right of the distaff, in dark brown, an inscription says: HEΠAIΣ KAΛΕ, ή παΐς καλή, The girl is beautiful
(source British Museum WEB Site)
Kalos inscriptions are love inscriptions that reflect, primarily, male homosexuality in Athenian life. They name a young man and praise him as «καλος». Which translates as handsome or beautiful but, in this context, carries with it an erotic connotation – in a word, sexy.
The are kale inscriptions for women, «καλή», but these are outnumbered by kalos inscriptions more than twenty to one. Far less is known about the women called kale, but some at least were prostitutes.
Source: A.L. Clark et alt., «Understanding Greek Vases», Getty Pubblicatons
CARC/CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Attic white-ground oinochoe;
Attributed to the Brygos Painter, 490 – 470 BC;
From Locri, Calabria;
London, The British Museum
H EΠAIΣ KAΛΕ / The girl is beautiful
The painting shows a woman holding a distaff in her left hand. She pulls out the fibres to the spun into thread by rotation of the spindle and whorl dangling bellow. She is depicted in a long sleeved, dotted chiton, a bordered himation, and sandals, with earrings, bracelets, and hair wound into a ball on the neck and fastened with a fillet.
To right of the distaff, in dark brown, an inscription says: HEΠAIΣ KAΛΕ, ή παΐς καλή, The girl is beautiful
(source British Museum WEB Site)
Kalos inscriptions are love inscriptions that reflect, primarily, male homosexuality in Athenian life. They name a young man and praise him as «καλος». Which translates as handsome or beautiful but, in this context, carries with it an erotic connotation – in a word, sexy.
The are kale inscriptions for women, «καλή», but these are outnumbered by kalos inscriptions more than twenty to one. Far less is known about the women called kale, but some at least were prostitutes.
Source: A.L. Clark et alt., «Understanding Greek Vases», Getty Pubblicatons
CARC/CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Attic white-ground oinochoe;
Attributed to the Brygos Painter, 490 – 470 BC;
From Locri, Calabria;
London, The British Museum