Red-figure Kylix

The Villa Giulia Painter was the chief representative of an academic group that specialized in painting calm, harmonious scenes. The inside scene depicts a seated youth holding a staff. His athletic equipment--bathing sponge; an aryballos, a round, short-necked jar containing rubbing oil; and a curved metal strigil, used for scraping oil and moisture off the skin after exercising--hangs on the wall of the gymnasium. A shortened form of the kalos, or love name, eolais appears above the seated youth. Vase painters commonly added these terms of endearment to acknowledge some athlete or youth popular at the time. The names were not necessarily related to the scenes depicted.