Vase Painting, Gender, and Social Identity in Archaic Athens

Spectators at the sides of narrative vase paintings have long been at the margins of scholarship, but a study of their appearance shows that they provide a model for the ancient viewing experience. They also reflect social and gender roles in archaic Athens. This study explores the phenomenon of spectators through a database built from a census of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, which reveals that the figures flourished in Athenian vase painting during the last two-thirds of the sixth century BCE. Using models developed from psychoanalysis and the theory of the gaze, ritual studies, and gender studies, Stansbury-O'Donnell shows how these ‘spectators’ emerge as models for social and gender identification in the archaic city, encoding in their gestures and behavior archaic attitudes about gender and status.