Sosibios Vase
The Sosibios Vase is a Neo-Attic marble krater of the Hellenistic period.[1] It is attributed by signature to Sosibios, a Greek sculptor who was active in Rome during the end of the Roman Republic, and is dated to approximately 50 BCE. It is Sosibios' only known work.[1]
Description[edit]
The krater, which stands at 78 cm. in height, is a marble adaptation of a type of metal vessel known from the late fifth century BCE (e.g. The Derveni Krater).[1] It is decorated with a relief depicting Artemis and Hermes standing by an altar and presiding over a Bacchic procession of several maenads.[1] Hermes is wearing a chlamys and bearing the caduceus. Artemis appears in her role as the huntress with a quiver on her back, a bow in her right hand, and a deer hoof in her left.[1] The maenads are shown dancing to music, and are accompanied by a dancing satyr, and an armed warrior and Apollo, playing the cithara.[1]
The artist's signature, reading "by Sosibios the Athenian," is engraved on the plinth of the altar.[2]
Recent history of the work[edit]
The vase was part of the royal collection of Louis XIV from 1692, but entered the Louvre in 1797 after becoming confiscated property under the Revolution.[1] It is presently still housed in the Louvre.
The English poet John Keats traced an engraving of the Sosibios Vase after seeing it in Henry Moses's A Collection of Antique Vases, Altars, Paterae.[3] His 1819 poem Ode on a Grecian Urn is presumed to have been partially inspired by this work.[4]
Citations[edit]
Bibliography[edit]
- ("Volute Krater" Louvre Museum Website) https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/volute-krater
- Blunden, Edmund. Leigh Hunt's "Examiner" Examined. Hamden: Archon Books, 1967.
- Litvinskij, B.A., and N.O. Tursunov. “The Leninabad Krater and the Louvre Sosibios Vase (Neo-Attic Art and Central Asia).” East and West, vol. 24, no. 1/2, 1974, pp. 89–110.
- McDermott, William C. “Keats and Sosibios.” The Classical Journal, vol. 44, no. 1, 1948, pp. 33–34.