Greek Palmette and Lotus Flowers Scarf

Description

Our ornately decorated scarf adapts motifs that appear on the neck of a terracotta column-krater in the Museum’s collection. This column-krater, a vase for mixing wine and water, is attributed to the Orchard Painter (Greek, Attic, ca. 460 B.C.). The figural scene on the vase, from which the artist gets his name, shows women in an orchard gathering apples. The decoration of a Greek vase typically consists of a figural subject and ornamental motifs, often derived from plant forms.

Silk chiffon. Imported. 64 1/2'' x 18''.

Art History

Classical ornamental motifs were revived during the Renaissance and later in the eighteenth century as there was a renewed interest in Greek and Roman civilization. This renewed interest led to the increasing influence of classical antiquity on artistic creations. By the 1770s Neoclassicism came to dominate European architecture, painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, and it remained a stylistic force well into the nineteenth century.