FLOOR.] 
SECOND VASE EOOM. 
123 
Collection a Invg-e number of Fictile Vases and otlier anti- 
quifcies from the Blacas, Temple, and Castellan i Collections 
Lave been incorporated. 
The Greek Fictile Vases are arranged in Wall Cases on the 
North and Eastern sides of the room (Cases 68—72, 1-31), 
and iu the detached Cases in the centre. A large proportion 
of the subjects represented relates to Diooysiac festivals, to 
Venus and Cupid, or to funeral offerings. 
The figures are painted in red or white on a black ground, the 
details being sometimes picked out in crimson or yellow. The 
black varnish is less brilliant than in the earlier styles, and 
the shapes of the vases less elegant ; the ornaments are more 
florid, the composition more pretentious and elaborate, and 
the drawing mannered and often careless. These charac- 
teristics mark the decline of the art of vase«painting. 
Cases 71-2 contain the black modelled ware, among which will be 
found many shapes imitated from vases in metal. Cases 6-9 contain 
another set of the same class of vases found at Capua, and remarkable 
for elegance of shape and richness of gilt ornament. 
On the Table Cases in this room are the following select 
vases : — 
Table Case A. 1. Krater : Death of Priam and meeting of Menelaus 
and Helen : reverse, Olympic Deities, meeting of two heroes, and 
battle of Greeks and Amazons. (Minervini, Bullettino Archeologico 
NapoHtano, 1858, p. 145.) 
Table Case C. 1. Krater: The hunt of the Calydonian boar. — Pour- 
tales. 2. Krater : Lykurgos slaying his family ; reverse, Pelops, 
Hippodamia, Myrtilos. 3. ^Trafe?-; Scene in Hades : Orpheus holding 
Cerberus. — Blacas. 
Table Case D. 1. Ampliora : The surprise of Thetis by Peleus; a 
polychrome painting with some of the details picked out with gold. 
This picture, remarkable for masterly drawing, is one of the few 
extant examples where gold has been combined with several colours 
in fictile art; reverse, Bacchus, Ariadne, a Satyr; a monochrome 
design. This exquisite specimen of ceramography was found at 
Camirus, in Pihodes. 
2. Krater : Mourners bringing offerings to a tomb ; reverse, Satyrs 
and Maenads. Temple. 
3. Krater : The initiation of the Dioscuri at the lesser mysteries at 
Agra ; reverse, Dionysos, Plutos, and other figures. — Pourtales. 
Table Cases E, G. Six Panathenaic amphora:, from the Cyrenaica. 
One of these bears the name of the Athenian archon Euthykritos, B.C. 
328; on another is the name of the archon Nikokrates, b.c. 333; and 
on a third, that of the archon Polyzelos, b c. 367. On the obverse 
