The Derveni Krater by Beryl Barr-Sharrar brings together many diverse elements related to this spectacular metal vessel. This is not the first scholarly monograph about the krater. It was the subject of a dissertation that appeared in 1978 by Eugenia Giouri for the University of Thessaloniki, and Barr-Sharrar gives credit to Giouri’s pioneering work. Barr-Sharrar’s volume is, however, the first in-depth study of the Derveni Krater that is easily available to readers outside of Greece. Filled with super illustrations, it includes information that has come to light since 1978 from numerous sources, including her own papers and publications. She knows the Derveni Krater inside and out and has spoken and written about various elements of it for three decades; she is well qualified to undertake a publication of this masterpiece of ancient Greek art.

After introducing her subject with a review of the history of metal vessels discovered in Macedonia, Barr-Sharrar turns her attention in chapter 2 to the finds from the tombs excavated in 1962 at Derveni, an area about seven miles north of Thessaloniki. This information comes primarily from a publication by two highly respected Greek archaeologists, Petros Themelis and Ioannis Touratsoglou (Οι τάφοι του Δερβενίου, Athens, 1997). Barr-Sharrar was well-advised to include illustrations and other information from their study, and they were generous in giving her permission to do so. Their book in modern Greek is available only in specialized research libraries, so few of her readers would have easy access to it.

Archaeological information crucial for understanding the Derveni Krater’s context establishes, for example, that the final use in antiquity of the vessel designed to mix wine was as a container for the cremated remains of a man between thirty-five and sixty years old and a younger woman of undetermined age. The krater stood as the most prominent object in the one-room underground structure the excavators call Tomb B, which can be dated by pottery fragments found in it to the last quarter of the fourth-century BC. Barr-Sharrar agrees with most others who have studied the material that the time of the burial probably was between 320 and 300 BC. She does not concur with Giouri, however, in assigning that date to the krater, too. Barr-Sharrar argues that the vessel was created before the tomb was built and was an antique by the time it became a cinerarium, a practice she thinks was common for metal vessels in Macedonia during the late fourth-century BC.

Epigraphers generally agree, she reports, that an inscription running along the lip of the krater’s mouth reads, in Thessalian dialect, “Krater of Astioun, son of Anaxagoras from Larissa.” It seems logical to assume that Astioun is the man whose bones were interred in the vessel. Barr-Sharrar suggests that the inscription was added a generation or more after the creation of the elaborate bronze vessel. She proposes a believable scenario in keeping with the history of Macedonia and Thessaly to explain how the krater came into the possession of Astioun, who could have had the inscription added after he inherited it. The letters of the inscription, composed of silver strips pressed into shallow channels, and the way they were fabricated, may solve the question of whether they are contemporary with the vase or not; but if so, they have not yet yielded a definitive answer.

Since no parallels have so far been discovered for the grand Derveni Krater, Barr-Sharrar turns to the few other big bronze kraters known to survive (none have walls decorated with relief), to sculpture in marble (primarily reliefs), and to painted pottery (especially kraters with large scenes) for comparisons to establish the time that the Derveni vessel was made. Many comparisons in the book are illustrated next to the text, making it easy to understand her points. She proposes that the Derveni Krater was produced about 370 BC, and the stylistic comparisons she illustrates support that date as a strong possibility, although dating fourth-century sculpture by stylistic comparisons is a slippery endeavor.

Barr-Sharrar makes clear that all of the decoration on the vase carries a meaning, and she takes on the challenge of deciphering the complex iconography. Again she finds good comparative material in painted pottery, though she expands her search widely. The primary scene presented on the wall of the krater focuses on sensuous images of Dionysos and creatures in his circle; it appears in skillful repoussé running around the wall of the oval-shaped vessel. Barr-Sharrar’s articulate and sensitive description of the ten figures (Dionysos, Ariadne, a panther, a hunter wearing only one boot, five maenads, and an ithyphalic satyr she identifies as Silenos himself) on the large frieze brings out the nuances in the complicated scene. Her analysis of the boldly erotic composition and masterful modelling of the figures representing Dionysos and Ariadne suggests that the artist was commissioned to indicate the god’s domination over his mortal bride. Barr-Sharrar explains this interpretation as strengthening the possibility that this krater was originally made for an initiation ritual or some other religious ceremony, which she proposes might be an Athenian festival. Barr-Sharrar is certain that the hunter wearing only one boot is a “non-Euripidean” Pentheus, and she explains how visual presentations differ from literary ones and cannot be thought of as mere illustrations. Some readers, however, may consider the identity of the hunter elusive. In opposition to Giouri’s interpretation of the maenads, Barr-Sharrar places them in a repertory of maenad poses used by artists in southern Greece, which was discussed by F. Hauser in 1889 (Verzeichnis der neuattischen Reliefs, Stuttgart) and L. A. Touchette in 1995 (The Dancing Maenad Reliefs: Continuity and Change in Roman Copies [Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement 62], London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1995); she theorizes that maenads in canonical poses appeared on an unidentified public monument in Athens where they became models for the artist of the Derveni Krater.

Information Barr-Sharrar presents, supported by examinations and advice from excellent conservators, reveals that the imaginative creator of the Derveni Krater was a master of metals (or else worked with one) who blended casting and hammering techniques to use whatever method would create the effect he wanted. For example, the massive handles, the foot, and the statuettes on the shoulders of the body are cast, but the repoussé frieze was formed by hammering, and the egg-shaped body itself was raised by hammering a bronze disk to a height of 76.6 cm. The golden gleam of the entire krater, nearly one meter high, now marred only in relatively few places by dark green corrosion, led many people (including several art historians of note) to the mistaken idea that the vessel was made of gold or was gilded, but chemical analysis established that the krater is bronze. No gold was used in its manufacture. The golden glow results from a high percentage of tin in the bronze alloy. Touches of color appear on the surface by selected additions of silver and of copper. For example, the ivy leaves and vines stand out in silver, the red lining of the standing satyr’s cape billows behind him in copper, and the red and silver-gray stripes of copper and silver on the snakes curling around the handles call attention to the large sinuous vipers.

A great strength of this book is Barr-Sharrar’s perceptive verbal descriptions and her choices of illustrations, both of which illuminate the dramatic composition, sensitive modelling, and sure execution of this magnificent monument. Not every reader, however, will agree with all of Barr-Sharrar’s iconographical interpretations, and some scholars may be astonished to find that she argues so strongly for an Athenian-centered interpretation of the Derveni Krater despite the strong ties it displays to art from other Macedonian tombs and to art from Greek settlements that range from Sicily to the Black Sea, as well as to Athens and the Peloponnesus. Masters of sculpture and metal-working traveled widely, taking their ideas and techniques with them, and setting up foundries where commissions beckoned. However, even those who do not agree with all of Barr-Sharrar’s interpretations will find this book an important focal point in future studies, especially in art and religion, which in turn undoubtedly will draw heavily on imagery and ideas brought together here that cannot be found in any other single publication.

There could scarcely be a better model for the design and production of a book on art history than The Derveni Krater: Masterpiece of Greek Metalwork. This is the first volume in a series from the American School of Classical Studies on Art and Architecture in Context, edited by Carol Mattusch and published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation; aid also came for it from the von Bothmer Publication Fund of the Archaeological Institute of America. May this model lead to the printing of many more books as handsome as this one, making the study of the history of art and architecture more accurate and pleasurable than ever before.