DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0223
i So
RELIEFS ON VAPHEIO CUP A
Frag-
mentary
reliefs in
Elgin
Collec-
tion.
was not in its main features, at least, supplied by the great series of reliefs set
up in conspicuous positions above the Northern Entrance Passage of the
Knossian Palace. May not the splendid plastic compositions, of which we
have here a fragmentary____
record, overlooking in a
manner the Sea Gate of
the great Minoan building,
have affected the works of
lesser Art as the sculp-
tures of the Parthenon did
those of Classical Greece ?
It seems possible that the
structural division into
three parts, here traceable,
may have conditioned the
triple arrangement that
seems to have been a per-
manentfeature of these com-
positions. It will be seen,
indeed, that some sculptural
fragments from the Elgin
Collection, found at Mycenae, once more lead us in an unexpected fashion to
the great Palace of Knossos as the main source of these Vapheio groups.1
The Elgin reliefs, as we shall see, point to two separate groups, one
containing a charging and the other a stationary figure of a bull, and this
corresponds with the antithetic composition of the two groups depicted on the
Vapheio Cups. In one case we see there a bull-hunting scene, in the other,
as will be shown below, a scene of capture by means of a decoy cow. Both
groups, moreover, divide themselves into three episodes, an arrangement
which in the case of the frieze of reliefs above the Western bastions of the
Northern Entrance Passage was almost imposed by structural conditions.
Reliefs on the Vapheio Cup A.
A brief description of the designs on the two gold cups from the
Vapheio Tomb may be given here (see Fig. 123, a and b).
The Bull-hunting scene on the Cup 2 A of Fig. 123, presenting the more
Fig. 124. Bull caught by Net on Vapheio Cup A.
1 See below, p. 195 seqq.
2 The original publication of the Vapheio
Cups by their discoverer, Ch. Tsountas, ap-
peared in 'Etf>. 'Apx., 1889, pp. 129-71, and
Pis. VI1-X), and a careful technical descrip-
tion by G. Perrot in Hist, de (Art, vi, p. 784
seqq. (see, too, Figs. 369, 370, and PI. XV).
RELIEFS ON VAPHEIO CUP A
Frag-
mentary
reliefs in
Elgin
Collec-
tion.
was not in its main features, at least, supplied by the great series of reliefs set
up in conspicuous positions above the Northern Entrance Passage of the
Knossian Palace. May not the splendid plastic compositions, of which we
have here a fragmentary____
record, overlooking in a
manner the Sea Gate of
the great Minoan building,
have affected the works of
lesser Art as the sculp-
tures of the Parthenon did
those of Classical Greece ?
It seems possible that the
structural division into
three parts, here traceable,
may have conditioned the
triple arrangement that
seems to have been a per-
manentfeature of these com-
positions. It will be seen,
indeed, that some sculptural
fragments from the Elgin
Collection, found at Mycenae, once more lead us in an unexpected fashion to
the great Palace of Knossos as the main source of these Vapheio groups.1
The Elgin reliefs, as we shall see, point to two separate groups, one
containing a charging and the other a stationary figure of a bull, and this
corresponds with the antithetic composition of the two groups depicted on the
Vapheio Cups. In one case we see there a bull-hunting scene, in the other,
as will be shown below, a scene of capture by means of a decoy cow. Both
groups, moreover, divide themselves into three episodes, an arrangement
which in the case of the frieze of reliefs above the Western bastions of the
Northern Entrance Passage was almost imposed by structural conditions.
Reliefs on the Vapheio Cup A.
A brief description of the designs on the two gold cups from the
Vapheio Tomb may be given here (see Fig. 123, a and b).
The Bull-hunting scene on the Cup 2 A of Fig. 123, presenting the more
Fig. 124. Bull caught by Net on Vapheio Cup A.
1 See below, p. 195 seqq.
2 The original publication of the Vapheio
Cups by their discoverer, Ch. Tsountas, ap-
peared in 'Etf>. 'Apx., 1889, pp. 129-71, and
Pis. VI1-X), and a careful technical descrip-
tion by G. Perrot in Hist, de (Art, vi, p. 784
seqq. (see, too, Figs. 369, 370, and PI. XV).