Vase-painters rarely represent the facial expressions of individuals. A rare exception is this piece. On the right, you see a warrior wearing a cuirass. His face is intent: he has a furrowed brow, bags beneath his eyes, and an untidy-looking beard. He is significantly shorter than the figure beside him. In Greek art, the older figure is usually taller, but he looks older than his companion. This anomaly and the specificity of his features make one wonder who he is. He may be Tereus, king of Thrace, a land to the north of Greece. In mythology, Tereus treated both his wife and her sister Philomela with brutal violence, and they in turn took gruesome revenge.

For the Greeks, being beautiful was inseparable from being good. It would have been nearly impossible for them to imagine a handsome villain. The warrior in this scene is not ugly, and yet his face does not have the graceful regularity of most faces in vase-painting. He must represent a departure from the ideals of heroes and athletes, whose valor and beauty are outward signs of their inward virtues.

The painter of this vase is named the Achilles Painter, after a famous image of Achilles he painted on another vase. This piece is decorated in red-figure, but he also excelled in another technique, called white-ground. You can see some of his white-ground works on the shelf above.

To hear more about this vase from Dietrich von Bothmer, Distinguished Research Curator of Greek Art, press the green PLAY button now.