Tour B: Childhood in Antiquity
What role did children play in ancient societies? How did their world relate to that of adults? And how were children – in their physical development and at different ages – depicted in ancient artworks? The tour sets out in search of ancient realities and representations of childhood.
B8 Intimate Grief
[IKA, Photo: Kristina Klein]
Inv.-Nr. 791
Weißgrundige Lekythos aus Athen
Zuschreibung an Vogel-Maler (nach J. D. Beazley)
Zweite Hälfte des 5. Jh. v. Chr.
In this case is an original vase from classical Athens, of a type known as a white-ground lekythos. Vases of this shape and colour were commonly used in Athens as grave gifts. They often depict the spirit or ghost of the deceased person standing behind the grave stele, and as well as living mourners either placing offerings or gesturing towards the stele.
In this instance, a naked male toddler reaches up towards the grave stele in a poignant gesture, yearning for his dead mother. The spirit of his mother watches from the other side of the stele sadly. Between them stands the stele, decorated brightly to show the continued care of the grave by the living family.
The portrayal of the baby is naturalistic, with its rounded limbs and torso. The grief of both child and mother at their separation is poignant, and is a tender way of representing real human relationships in the past. The small scale of the white-ground lekythoi and their intimate and immediate nature mean that they sometimes depict more personal and ‘real’ emotions than those we find on larger scale and more public grave monuments, such as stelae. In antiquity as in today’s world, different things can be portrayed in different artistic media.
This white ground lekythos is one of around 4,000 original ancient objects in our collection. You can see some other examples of these in the glass cases in various locations around the collection. Most of these, however, are safely stored in a dedicated originals room.