The Master of the Boston Pan-Krater

Abstract

Two years ago Hauser published a remarkable bell-krater then in private possession and now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. (FRH. Pl. 115). On the one side we see a picture of Artemis shooting Actaeon, on the other a young shepherd is hotly pursued by a goat-headed Pan, while a small god-stick, or phallic herm, views the scene from a neighbouring eminence. The drawing is a marvel of elaborate elegance, the subjects uncommon, the forms and attitudes strangely and finely stylized. Who is the author of this fascinating work? In the text which accompanies the plate Hauser mentioned and reproduced a small pelike in Vienna, which he saw was closely related to the Boston krater, though he did not feel certain it was by the same artist: on the front of this vase, a man squats on a rock fishing with a rod and a youth with a basket stands beside him; on the reverse, a second youth carrying two baskets on a pole across his shoulder is speeding past a phallic herm (ibid. 2 pp. 293 and 295). In the opinion of the present writer, krater and pelike are undoubtedly by one master; and forty other vases are to be attributed to the same ingenious hand. A list of these vases will first be given, arranged according to shape; and a description of the master's style will follow. Cunning composition; rapid motion; quick deft draughtsmanship; strong and peculiar stylization; a deliberate archaism, retaining old forms, but refining, refreshing, and galvanizing them; nothing noble or majestic, but grace, humour, vivacity, originality, and dramatic force: these are the qualities which mark the Boston krater, and which characterize the anonymous artist who, for the sake of convenience, may be called ‘the master of the Boston Pan-vase,’ or, more briefly,‘the Pan-master.’