Container (Pyxis) with Women Juggling Apples

Place of OriginGreece, reportedly from Athens

Dateabout 470-460 BCE

DimensionsH (to top of knob): 4 3/4 in. (12.1 cm)
H (to lip): 3 3/8 in. (8.6 cm)
Diam (lid): 4 1/8 in. (10.5 cm)
Diam (body at base): 4 9/16 in. (11.6 cm)

MediumWhite Ground: Wheel-thrown, slip decorated earthenware

ClassificationCeramics

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1963.29A-B

Not on View

DescriptionDomestic scenes with women. Scene: women juggling apples, their wool winding put aside; a seated woman; a woman holding a mirror; a woman holding an apple

Label TextThis elegant box belonged to a woman, who used it to hold cosmetics or jewelry in life; in death, it accompanied her to her tomb. Five women are shown in an Athenian home in the section designated for women, which was generally separate quarters upstairs. Two women juggle apples. Everyday objects are strewn about: chairs, baskets of wool for weaving, pillows, mirror, and sandals. The white ground allowed the artist to paint in a colorful range of slip (clay diluted with water), ranging from black for hair to reddish brown for cloaks and golden brown for drapery.Published References"A Selection of Works of Art on the London Market," Apollo, (supplement), 1962,1.

Beazley, John D., Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1963, p. 1675, no. 94 bis.

Münzen and Medaillen A.G., Auktion XXVI. Basel. Kusntwerke der Antike. 5 Oct. 1963, p. 79-80, lot no. 149.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 7, no. 4, 1964, p. 79.

Riefsthal, Rudolph M. "Greek Vases," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 11, no. 2, 1968, p. 45.

Lakofsky, Charles, Pottery, Dubuque, 1968, p. 61, fig. 33.

Beazley, John D., Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 434.

Luckner, Kurt T., "Greek Vases: Shapes and Uses," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 15, no. 3, 1972, p. 79, 86, fig. 40.

Boulter, Cedric G., and Kurt T. Luckner, Corpus vasorum antiquorum: Toledo Museum of Art, U.S.A. Fasc. 17, Toledo, 1976, p. 37-38, repr. pl. 58 and 60,1.

Mertens, Joan R., Attic white-ground: its development on shapes other than lekythoi, New York, 1977, p. 137.

Roberts, Sally R., The Attic pyxis, Chicago, 1978, p. 78, 83, repr. pl. 54, 2.

Keuls, Eva C., "Attic vase-painting and the home textile industry," in Ancient Greek art and iconography, Madison, 1983, p. 216, repr. fig. 14.

Truitt, P. "Attic white ground pyris and phiale," Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, v. 67, 169, p. 81, figs. 11-13, pp. 84, 85.

Ferrari, Gloria, Figures of speech: men and maidens in ancient Greece, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2002, p. 234.

Pfisterer-Haas, "Mädchen und Frauen im Obstgarten und beim Ballspiel," Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung, bd. 118, 2003, p. 179, 192, Taf. 43,3.

Exhibition HistoryThe Toledo Museum of Art, Treasures for Toledo, Dec. 1964-Jan. 1965.

Ann Arbor, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology and The University of Michigan Museum of Art, The Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii: ancient ritual, modern muse, 2000, no. 98, p. 230-1, repr.

Hanover, NH, Hood Museum of Art, Darthmouth College; New York, Onassis Cultural Center; Cincinnati Art Museum; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, Coming of age in ancient Greece: images of childhood from the classical past, 2003-2004, no. 81, p. 273, repr. (col.).

Toledo Museum of Art, Coming of Age in Ancient Greece, August 23 - December 5, 2004.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Beazley, John D., Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1963, p. 1675, no. 94 (for a white-ground pyxis in the National Museum, Athens (acc.no. 2188) with a similar subject by the same painter).

Collignon and Couve, Catalogue des vases peints du Musee National d'Athens, Paris, 1902-1904, pl. 50, 1845.

cf. Smith, Cecil, Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases int eh British Museum, bol. III, London, 1896, 1.22.

cf. Peters, K., Archaeologischer Anzeiger, 1943, col. 120.

cf. Beazley, John D., Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1963, p. 1 (the shape of the Toledo pyxis is Beazley's Type A).

cf. Richter, G.M.A. and M. Milne, Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases, NEw York, 1935, fig. 141 (a similar pyxis shape, but with a highter, notched foot).

cf. Gow, A.S.F., Theocritus, vol. II, Cambridge, 1952, p. 107, on no. 5.88 (on hte apple as a love-token).