An Attic Red-Figured Cup Fragment with an Athlete
Attributed to the Pistoxenos Painter, Circa 470 B.C.
Width 3 1/4 inches (8.26 cm).
Property from the Myra and Larry Karp Collection of Musical Boxes and Automata, Seattle, Washington

Provenance:
Myra Karp (b. 1939), Seattle, Washington.
Historical handwritten label: ;“From Greek Vase c. 480 B.C. Vulci (tomb)” ;

In what was the tondo of a large cup, a young nude athlete is shown in profile with part of his companion’s upraised arm preserved to his right. The clavicles, pectorals, and iliac crest are rendered in elegant, spare lines of glossy black slip, with the tidy coiffure of curls encircled by a thin fillet in added red. His expression is one of serene focus even as the upper body twists towards the viewer, the left arm carried over the body to the center. ;The right arm is bent sharply up and back at the elbow, the hand above waist level with slender fingers extended. The thumb and forefinger pluck delicately at a ribbon in added red. The youth is likely in the process of tying up his genitalia before competition (referred to in modern parlance as ‘infibulation’). In a peculiarity of the Greek athletic tradition, an athlete typically secured his penis with a cord (kynodesm?) for both practical reasons (as they trained and competed in the nude) as well as aesthetic considerations.

For a comparable cup in size and subject matter, see Berlin, Antikensammlung: 1960.2 (BAPD 211336).