LID AND SIDE OF A PYXIS WITH THE SIGNATURE OF THE POTTER MEGAKLES. Fig. 138. MAENADS: FROM A RED-FIGURED POINTED AMPHORA.] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXIV. Fig. 139. POLYNEIKES OFFERS ERIPHYLE THE NECKLACE: FROM A RED-FIGURED PELIKE. _From Furtwängler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei._ Fig. 140. ORPHEUS AMONG THE THRACIANS: FROM A RED-FIGURED KRATER.] drinking vessels, lead us to the beginning of the age of Pheidias. This transition is also accompanied by some painters’ signatures, which become rarer, the more the individual performances of vase-painters are cast in the shade by the great art. The signatures do not present us with the first artists of the time. Hermonax is somewhat smooth and tedious, and Polygnotos, the namesake of the great painter, to judge from the mixed nature of his unoriginal style, must have lived by borrowing. His pelike from Gela is a Polygnotan vase with an Amazon scene; on the London stamnos, to be dated about the middle of the century, advanced and old-fashioned types are combined in an unpleasing fashion. Anonymous masters better represent the transition from Polygnotos to Pheidias. The master of a krater with a dancing scene in Rome (the ‘Villa Giulia’ master), is not distinguished for temperament and progressiveness, but is rather a correct and academic individual; but the neatly drawn scenes of his krater and stamnoi, in the noble bearing of the figures and the manner in which they gaze at each other, betray the approach of a new ideal of man. Much more talented is the master, who on a pointed amphora at Paris combined the wonderful group of two Maenads (Fig. 138) with a scene of Bacchic revelry, as Amasis did almost a century before (Fig. 98). The two girls are of truly royal dignity, like each other in this, but subtly distinguished in expression. The three-quarter view of the head is almost devoid of harshness, and only the ladle-shaped under lip connects her with the Polygnotan female heads.