B. COTTENCEAU
Greek epinetron
Attic red-figure epinetron. The bride Alcestis on the Epaulia (day after the wedding), with Theo, Charis, Theano, Asterope and Hippolyte. Also to be seen, the bride Harmonia with Aphrodite, Eros, Peitho, Kore, Hebe and Himeros. On the front of the epinetron is a depiction of Peleus wrestling with Thetis and a protome of the goddess Aphrodite.
From Eretria Painter. 430-420 BC.
The epinetron (Greek: ἐπίνητρον, plural: epinetra, ἐπίνητρα; "distaff"); Beazley also called them onoi, singular: onos) was a shape of Attic pottery worn on the thighs of women during the preparation of wool, not unlike a thimble for the thigh. Decorated epinetra were placed on the graves of unmarried girls, or dedicated at temples of female deities.
Because of the strong association between wool-working and the ideal woman and wife — as in the case of Penelope weaving in the Odyssey — it is a shape associated with the wedding. Its decoration was not exclusively related to its own use, though it often was.
Greek epinetron
Attic red-figure epinetron. The bride Alcestis on the Epaulia (day after the wedding), with Theo, Charis, Theano, Asterope and Hippolyte. Also to be seen, the bride Harmonia with Aphrodite, Eros, Peitho, Kore, Hebe and Himeros. On the front of the epinetron is a depiction of Peleus wrestling with Thetis and a protome of the goddess Aphrodite.
From Eretria Painter. 430-420 BC.
The epinetron (Greek: ἐπίνητρον, plural: epinetra, ἐπίνητρα; "distaff"); Beazley also called them onoi, singular: onos) was a shape of Attic pottery worn on the thighs of women during the preparation of wool, not unlike a thimble for the thigh. Decorated epinetra were placed on the graves of unmarried girls, or dedicated at temples of female deities.
Because of the strong association between wool-working and the ideal woman and wife — as in the case of Penelope weaving in the Odyssey — it is a shape associated with the wedding. Its decoration was not exclusively related to its own use, though it often was.