Paris on the Chigi Vase

Abstract
: The exquisitely decorated Chigi Vase, madearound 640 BC, is one of the best known of all Greek painted pots, and with its three intricate friezes withhuman figures it is certainly among the most ambi-tious ever produced at Corinth. Found in Etruria, it is not clear for whom it was originally made. It is easierto describe what it shows than to make firm state-ments about what it was intended to convey; mostearlier discussions (usually very brief) have concludedthat no linkage between the scenes was intended. Twomore recent analyses, however, see an over-arching ‘programme’ at work, concerned with the paideia andtraining of Greek youths. The present discussionconcentrates on the possible connections between theJudgement of Paris painted under the handle, and theother scenes, at the same time taking the remainingworks of the Chigi Painter into consideration, andargues that the pot has more to do with Paris thanpreviously thought