Pandora: women in classical Greece

Abstract

Spotlighting superb examples of classical Greek art together with recent findings in anthropology, social history, psychology, classics, and classical archaeology, Pandora offers a multi-faceted look at women in myth, ritual, and daily life in classical Greece. In this catalogue, which was written to accompany an international traveling exhibition organized by the Walters Art Gallery, Ellen Reeder turns to classical Greek marbles, bronzes, terracottas, and vases to help illustrate the ways in which women were perceived and how they lived. The discussion is enhanced through interpretive essays written for this catalogue by a group of eminent classicists and historians. Reeder finds a particular emphasis on myths dealing with the unmarried maiden and the difficulty of the transition to marriage and motherhood- as exemplified in the stories of Danae, Thetis, Atalanta, and Amymone. She also explores images of containers and untamed animals as metaphors for women; rituals involving women, such as the wedding and the cult of the Little Bears at Brauron; the character and cult of goddesses; and the close association of women with textiles. The catalogue contains interpretive essays by Sally Humphreys, Mary Lefkowitz, Francois Lissarrague, John Oakley, Margot Schmidt, H. A. Shapiro, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Andrew Stewart, and Froma Zeitlin. The examples of art are drawn from more than fifty collections in fourteen countries and feature both familiar masterpieces and previously inaccessible works.