Ptolemaic vase paintings

From Blanche Brown – Ptolemaic paintings and mosaics (1957)

 

38. A shield and a cuirass with a thonged skirt are painted on the body of the vase. The shield has a red outline and a blue episema ; the cuirass is light brown.

Found in the Shatbi cemetery. Alexandria, Greco-Roman Museum.

 

39. Three objects are painted on this vase, a cuirass and shield, both very similar to those on the vase above, and a tombstone tied with a ribbon and mounted on a two-step base. The cuirass is yellow with some outlines in red, the shield is red. The tombstone is yellow with bright red tympanum and deep red ribbon.

Found in the Shatbi cemetery. Alexandria, Greco-Roman Museum.

 

40. A ribbon with white central band and red edges is painted as though it were laid around the neck of the vase with its two ends dropping over onto the body. A sword in a scabbard is painted as though hanging obliquely from the two ribbon ends. Its handle is black, its hilt yellow. The scabbard is painted lengthwise in two bands, one pink the other red, and ends in a yellow heart-shaped point.

Found in the Shatbi cemetery Alexandria, Greco-Roman Museum.

 

41. The painting on the vase depicts a shield, flat-rimmed and convex, in the center of which is a head with flowing hair. The head is probably a Gorgoneion*, although no attribute identifies it with certainty as such, since that is a customary subject for shield decoration. The rim of the shield is ochre, the inner area is light ochre. A dark red shadow falls on the rim tovvard the right and bottom, indicating that it is illuminated from the upper left. The background color of the central tondo is light blue. In the head the fesh is light tan with brovvm shadows. The eyes are brown, the lips pink. Brovvs and outlines of eyes are dark brown. The hair is light brown with dark brown shadows .

Found before ISSA in Alexandria. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

*Steve Burt notes: The head looks nothing like a Gorgoneion, but does look very like the conventional depiction of Alexander, looking up to the left.