id: 108979 accession number: 1927.145 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1927.145 updated: 2023-03-04 09:29:38.830000 Black-Figure Loutrophoros (Ritual Water Vessel): Prothesis (Laying out of Corpse), Mourners, c. 500 BC. Greek, Attic. Ceramic; overall: 43.5 cm (17 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund 1927.145 title: Black-Figure Loutrophoros (Ritual Water Vessel): Prothesis (Laying out of Corpse), Mourners title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 500 BC creation date earliest: -505 creation date latest: -495 current location: creditline: The Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund copyright: --- culture: Greek, Attic technique: ceramic department: Greek and Roman Art collection: GR - Greek type: Ceramic find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS --- measurements: Overall: 43.5 cm (17 1/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: The Silver Jubilee Exhibition opening date: 1941-06-23T04:00:00 The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941). title: Exhibition of the Month: Components of Art: The Line opening date: 1948-02-12T05:00:00 Exhibition of the Month: Components of Art: The Line. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 12-April 12, 1948). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Zoumpoulakis, sold to Brummer Gallery date: ?-1926 footnotes: citations: Brummer Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1926-1927 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1927- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Mourning figures wrap all the way around this vessel, even beneath the handles. digital description: The loutrophoros, a tall-necked water vessel, served two main purposes in ancient Athens. In life, it carried sacred spring water for ceremonial pre-marriage baths. After death, it marked the tomb of an unmarried person, as if to account for that not experienced in life. Here, both the precise shape—a two-handled loutrophoros amphora rather than a three-handled loutrophoros hydria—and the depiction of the deceased suggest the commemoration of a departed man (rather than a woman). The iconography is entirely funerary, with multiple mourning figures shown: four women on the neck; six women surrounding the corpse on its bier; and three men making farewell gestures. The inscriptions near some of the mourning women do not spell out real words but may represent their sorrowful cries. wall description: The loutrophoros was used to carry water from the sacred spring of Enneakrounos for use in a ceremonial bath before marriage. Therefore, these vases were placed over the tombs of unmarried persons for use in the afterworld. Neck: Mourning women (both sides) Front: Six women mourn before the funeral couch of a young man. Inscriptions above the women’s shoulders do not form complete words. A loutrophoros had specific ritual uses. It was used for the bridal bath and also to wash the body of a deceased unmarried person before burial. Back: On the body is a line of three mourning men. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive. page number: BAPD 761 url: http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/record/6D81F758-62EB-41E4-929A-E27B31947A72 The Brummer Gallery Records. Cloisters (Museum), n.d. page number: P3582 url: https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll9/id/29226 Howard, Rossiter, "Two Greek Vases." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 14, no. 6 (1927): 99-101. page number: url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25137032 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928. page number: Reproduced: p. 74 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1928/page/n78 "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 15, no. 2 (Feb. 1928): 35-37. page number: url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25137102 The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 26 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n20 Greater Cleveland Social Science Program. The Human Adventure, I: Ancient Civilization; Teachers' Guide. Grade Five. 1965. page number: Vol. 1, p. 164 url: Boulter, C. G., Jenifer Neils, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. page number: p. 11, Pls. 15-16 url: http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/XDB/ASP/browseCVARecord.asp?id={6D81F758-62EB-41E4-929A-E27B31947A72}&startRef= Finkenstaedt, Elizabeth. "Mycenaean Mourning Customs in Greek Painting." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 2 (1973): 39-43. page number: url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152469 Folsom, Robert Slade. Attic Black-Figured Pottery. Park Ridge, N.J.: Noyes Press, 1975. page number: pl. 34 url: Immerwahr, Henry R. A Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions (CAVI). [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified], 1998. page number: no. 3201, p. 790 url: Pedrina, Marta. I gesti del dolore nella ceramica attica (VI-V secolo a.C.): per un'analisi della comunicazione non verbale nel mondo greco. Venezia: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2001. page number: fig. 46, p. 269. url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.145/1927.145_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.145/1927.145_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1927.145/1927.145_full.tif