The lid decorated with a palmette frieze, around the body five women in an interior with a bird and a hare.

Pyxides (boxes) like this one were used to store cosmetics or jewellery. They are often decorated with images of women in domestic interiors, and sometimes with wedding scenes. Here, five women sit and stand in an interior. Their gestures imply a narrative, but there is no obvious interpretation of the scene. One of the standing women holds a distaff with wool around it, and there is a kalathos (wool basket) in front of one of the seated women. The Ionic column, and the household altar, indicate that the scene takes place indoors. A large bird is perched on the kalathos while a hare scampers along the ground. Such animals were commonly kept as pets by the Athenians.

Women in vase paintings are usually presented as quiet, obedient and domestic. The only common exceptions are maenads, the followers of Dionysus, or mythological women like Amazons. In scenes of everyday life, women are nearly always shown exclusively in the company of children or other women (as here). In reality too, they were expected to remain within their rooms at the rear of the house, and had very few opportunities to mix with men outside their immediate family.

 

Literature: S. Lewis, The Athenian Woman, an iconographic handbook (London, 2002), p. 159, fig. 4.21; J. Falconer and T. Mannack, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: Great Britain, Fascicule 19: Winchester College (Oxford, 2002), p. 9, plate 8.4-8; Winchester College Memorial Buildings: Department of Classical Art (Winchester, 1909), p. 21 (no. 68)

Provenance: Gift of Miss Preston before 1909

Location: Treasury, Gallery 3