Caption:
Naples painter, painter of the Louvre Centauromachie, colonette crater (Orpheus and the Thracians, Manteljuveniles), clay, quickly turned, painted, alternately fired, Total: Height: 48 cm, ceramics, history of Orpheus, High Classical (Greek antiquity), The large vessel is a colonette crater, a Greek wine mixing vessel. During the banquet, the symposium, water and wine were mixed in it and from this the participants were served in smaller vessels. The back is decorated with three so-called mantle figures, a typical but simple scene from the repertoire of Attic vase painting. In the center is a bearded man with scepter or stick, opposite him a woman and on the right edge a young man with a stick. The main page shows a scene from Greek mythology. A musician is sitting on a rock in the middle of the scene, absorbed in the play of his lyre. He is dressed in a coat and wears a laurel wreath in his hair. At the back the hair is tied up and falls down at the temples. His audience includes three men with lances, one of whom carries his horse and another sets his foot on the rock. Their clothing consists of short garments that are girded, woven wool coats, caps made of fox fur with animal tails hanging down, and soft boots. This costume is not Greek, but belongs to the Thracians, whose homeland is the rugged area north of Greece. A famous Thracian was the singer Orpheus, the musician in the middle. He enchanted not only humans with his musical talent, but also animals and nature, for which the turtle and the stone under the rock of Orpheus stand. The myth of Orpheus was very popular in classical Athens and was used for many plays, such as those by Aeschylus or Euripides, or representations on vases. The tragic fate of the gifted musician, who lost his wife Eurydice, descended unsuccessfully into the underworld to redeem her, and was finally dismembered by raging women, was fascinating. The Hamburg vase depicts a quiet scene with a withdrawn Orpheus whose countrymen listen to