The delightfully animated winged woman on this cup fragment at Emory is likely Iris, the sprightly messenger of the gods.
It’s a wonderful representation in every respect, with outstretched wings overlapping the tondo’s border, strongly articulated flight feathers, and an almost downy quality elsewhere rendered with dilute glaze. Her face is typical of the Brygos painter, with significant rounded chin and intent gaze in profile.
The variety of textiles shown are glorious, with a chevron-weave to her sakkos (the snood covering her hair), and a filmy chiton in fine pleats, buttoned at the sleeves, and showing the outline of her breasts below (by 490-480 B.C., vase painters still struggled mightily with female anatomy…).
I especially like the fact that the fragment is part of Emory’s Carlos Museum – a collection with a robust educational tradition. It is one of many such fragments donated by legendary curator Dietrich von Bothmer, who famously used his private collection to develop the connoisseurship of his students, and torture the favored few during their doctoral examinations (I love the stories these survivors tell, traumatized years later!). Fun to think that Iris here could would have been scrutinized in such a setting, and that she will continue to be studied in much the same way in years to come.
