Ancient Sex

Visited the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on Sunday.  It's like a scaled-down version of the Met in that you could spend a week there and not see it all, as opposed to a month.  A couple of the Greek pieces were fun:

Signed by Nikothenes as potter

High-handled cup (kantharos) with depictions of lovemaking
Greek (Athens).  Said to have been found at Vulci, Italy
Archaic period, about 520-510 B.C.
Ceramic; red-figure technique

An orgy is in process on this cup.   The youth at the far right wields a sandal with sadistic intent.  On the floor are shoes and a basin, and on the wall are a birdcage, a flute case, and a dildo.

Here's a detail:

"The youth ... wields a sandal with sadistic intent" cracked me up.  Interestingly, the Egyptian exhibit contained a pair of leather sandals from 4,000 years ago.

And another:

Wine cup (kylix) with erotic scene
Douris, Greek
Late Archaic Period
about 480 B.C.
Ceramic, Red Figure

A bearded man bends over a woman with short hair (which may indicate her status as a slave). She braces herself on the stool in front of her which has lion-paw feet and various things piled on top of it, including her clothes. To the left is a couch (kline) which has an elaborately carved post with ionic volutes. An overstuffed striped cushion tops the kline.
Inscription: "the girl is pretty" (HE PAIS KALE) (above their heads), and "Hold still!"(HEXE HESUXOS) (issuing from the man's mouth)

There's nothing really admirable here: men keeping women in sexual slavery.  I just thought it interesting that group sex, S&M, and the association of drinking and fucking go back much further in history than we may usually assume.

Comments

[om]

i remember an art history professor, in really strained, rather high-pitched, british-accented tones, trying to describe a similar krater. "You..er...see here, there's some hanky-panky of sorts..and, uh, um...well, they really had a different religion from us." that would be at UCLA, circa 1998. i lol'd then, too.

[blueflyadult]

'...fucking go back much further in history than we may usually assume.' Well. In general Sexuality, as you say 'fucking', - an ancient code is deep in us, we live with him inside. Those fucking figures are the most beautiful things in Univers. We live in love and go in love. That is a most important formula of existence.

[A.B.]

Last year I had a very funny Greek ( and a punkrocker too!) art history professor. He was very outspoken when it came to the seedy stuff in Greek art and the class had some good laughs from his lectures. I remember how all of a sudden he said " Those are dicks!" as none of my classmates understood what a phallus was.