Droop Cups

Abstract

In JHS. xlix, 270, Beazley and Payne, in their article on Attic black-figured fragments from Naukratis in the British Museum, publish for the first time fragments of two cups that belong to a well-marked group of black-rimmed kylikes that was first studied by Droop some twenty years ago (JHS. xxx, 21 ff.). These cups can at once be distinguished from the ordinary black-rimmed Little Master kylix by the following peculiarities:The upper part of the stem is reserved and generally channelled.The edge of the foot is convex and black, not, as in normal Little Master cups, whether red or black of rim, straight in section and reserved.The hollow cone that runs from the base some way up the stem has a black band: in normal Little Master cups this cone is entirely reserved.Inside the bowl there is a thin reserved band, not, as in normal Little Master cups, right at the top of the rim, but some way down it.Whereas the normal Little Master cup, whether red-rimmed or black-rimmed, has the lower part of the body black with one reserved band, this treatment is exceptional in the Droop cups, which often shew a great variety of ornamental zones on this part of the vase; of these the most distinctive is a zone of inverted birds or animals, generally in pure silhouette.The inside of the bowl is decorated with only a small reserved medallion with sometimes a central dot and circle or two, or else is entirely black.