Kalpis with Toilette Scene with Two Women and Eros

This red-figure kalpis depicts a mistress, a maid, and Eros. In the center a woman (mistress) sits on a klismos in profile to the right, extending her arms toward Eros who flies in from the right. In each hand she holds an oval-shaped object (fruit or egg), and a ribbon in white, now mostly lost, is draped across her arms. She wears a chiton and mantle, and her hair is held in place by ribbons. Eros has a fillet, holds a small chest up in his right hand, and carries a clump of sprigs in his lowered left hand. On the left another woman stands in profile to the right, looking into a mirror that she holds up in her right hand. She wears an ungirded chiton decorated with two vertical stripes, and her hair is held in place by ribbons.

Scenes with a centrally seated woman and flanking figures to either side are common both at this time and with this painter.

This is the only Attic red-figure vase known to have come from Castel Campanile, a site near Caere excavated in 1837.

Inscription

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [cat. no. 220]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.