There are in the Hope Collection two vases, which may help towards an explanation of the well-known myth of Theseus and Sinis. They are both known from publications of about a hundred years back, but have for a long period been lost sight of. By the kindness of the owners I am able to bring them once more to light.
The scene from the side of one of them was published by Millin in his Peintures de Vases Antiques. It shows in the middle a tree growing from a small rise of ground. To the left of it stands Sinis, naked and bearded. He has pulled down a branch. To the right is Theseus, a young man in travelling costume, wearing a sword and carrying two spears. He has pulled down a larger branch. On the extreme left is a draped bearded man holding a sceptre. Millin writes, ‘le vase est aujourd'hui en Angleterre: il appartient à M. Edouard.’ By ‘M. Edouard’ he must mean J. Edwards, whose collection was dispersed in 1815, when the vase probably came directly into the hands of Thomas Hope. Millin's drawing is so incorrect and his description so scanty (he does not even indicate the shape) that a republication is necessary.