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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Until the Second World War, the antiquities collection held by the university in Leipzig included a set of four fragments attributed to Exekias, and long recognised by scholars as deriving from an amphora which in the subject of both obverse and reverse scenes was close to the type A amphora signed by Exekias in the Vatican Museum. Unfortunately the fragments were lost during the war; W. Herrmann has recently published them as war losses, listing all the information available on their history— the provenience is unknown. Three of the fragments bear a clear resemblance to side A of the Vatican amphora, which shows Achilles and Ajax intent on a board game, but the Dioskouroi scene on side B was identified only on the very slender evidence of T. 391 (Plate IVa), a small fragment bearing the head of a white dog.
This identification is now supported by the discovery that T. 391 joins cleanly with a hitherto unpublished fragment in Cambridge as may be seen in Plate IVc. The join is substantiated by the portion of the hand of ‘Polydeukes’ appearing on both fragments, by the leash held in that hand, and by the dog's paw, all of which bridge the break.
1 T. 355 a–c, attributed by Hauser, F., Jdl (1896) 178Google Scholar; T. 391, attributed by Beazley, J. D., Attic Black-Figure, a Sketch (Proc. Brit. Acad. xiv 29Google Scholar, 9. All four were published together by Technau, W., Exekias, Bilder griechischer Vasen, IX (Leipzig 1936) pl. 19c–fGoogle Scholar.
2 Vatican 344: Beazley, J. D., Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford 1956)Google Scholar—hereafter ABV—145, 13. Whether the Leipzig fragments originate from a type A or B amphora is uncertain: ABV 145. 15.
3 Herrmann, W., Wiss. Zeitschr. der Univ. Rostock, 16 Jahrgang (1967) 456Google Scholar, pls. 30, 2; 31, 2.
4 Museum of Classical Archaeology, U.P. 144, attributed by Beazley, , ABV 714Google Scholar.
5 To whom I am indebted for my information on the history of the fragment.
6 Boulogne: ABV 145, 18. Cambridge: Beazley, J. D., Paralipomena (Oxford 1971) 60Google Scholar. Technau (op. cit. 14) considers that the Boulogne amphora is late because it has one solo figure on the obverse; Moore, Mary B. (AJA lxxii [1968] 360)Google Scholar places it among the earliest works on the grounds that the horses on the reverse resemble the horses of Group E more closely than do other horses by Exekias. But compare Bloesch, H., Wandlungen, in Ernest Homann-Wedeking Festschrift (1975) 88Google Scholar.
7 Compare Herrmann, loc. cit.
8 ABV 144, 8; 145, 13 and 16.
9 I acknowledge with gratitude the help afforded me in my research for this paper by Professor R. M. Cook and staff of the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge; Miss Anna Bidder; Professor E. Paul of Karl-Marx Universität, Leipzig; the New Zealand University Grants Committee and the Internal Research Committee of Victoria University for their considerable financial support; and most recently Dr D. von Bothmer and Dr Joan Mertens, for making available publications and photographs which would otherwise have been inaccessible.
