Red-figured Nolan Amphora

Red-figured Nolan Amphora
Hermonax
Greece, Athens
Ca. 460 B.C.
Pottery
(83.187)
Weinberg Fund and
gift of Museum Associates

The artist Hermonax signed several vases, and his style has been recognized on more than one hundred others, among them this amphora with a woman running and holding a ribbon, probably intended for the youth on the other side. Hermonax is a follower of the Berlin Painter, one of the most important red-figure painters of the period 500 - 475 B.C. Characteristic of both artists are the single figures isolated against the black background. Hermonax, more than most of his contemporaries, preserves the freshness and sense of movement of the preceding age, the time of the Berlin Painter. A mark of his style is the way he draws the eye: the upper lid is convex instead of concave to the lower, and the iris is shown as a large black dot at the inner corner. This gives his faces an alert expression.

The term Nolan amphora refers to this particular type of small amphora, or two-handled jar, examples of which were first discovered at Nola, near Naples, Italy.

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