Amphora with Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and Dionysus

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Images(2)

Amphora with Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and Dionysus

Artist Priam Painter (Greek)

Place of OriginAthens, Greece

Dateabout 510-500 BCE

DimensionsH: 17 1/8 in. (43.5 cm); Diam (mouth): 7 7/8 in. (20 cm); Diam (body): 10 3/4 in. (27.3 cm); Diam (foot - as restored): 5 17/32 in. (14 cm)

MediumWheel-thrown ceramic, black-figure decoration .

ClassificationCeramics

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1929.48

Not on View

DescriptionOn Side A, Athena, wearing a crested helmet, stands with Apollo, who plays a kithara, and Hermes, draped in a chlamys. A grazing deer and floral elements fill the background. On Side B, Dionysos, holding a kantharos and vine, is accompanied by a dancing maenad and a leaping satyr. Decorative bands, including palmettes and lotus chains, encircle the neck and shoulder. The amphora is broken and repaired, with some fragments missing and restored in plaster. The foot has been reconstructed.

Label TextThe front side of this vessel shows three of the main Greek gods: Athena, standing between Apollo (who plays a stringed instrument called a kithara) and Hermes. Behind Athena is a grazing fawn. On the reverse side the god of wine and theater, Dionysos (holding a wine cup and surrounded by grape vines), stands between a dancing maenad (one of his female followers) and a satyr (part-goat woodland spirit). Although in later periods Dionysos was usually depicted as a handsome beardless young man, in this period he is often shown as a mature man wearing the proper clothing of a Greek aristocrat.Published References

Zahn, R. Sammlung Baurat Schiller, Berlin, 19-20, Marz 1929, p. 128, pls. 27-28, lot no. 400.

Washington, S., "Greek Vase Painting," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 5, no. 4, 1962, p. 78.

Beazley, John D., Paralipomena, Oxford, 1971, p. 146, no. 15.

Boulter, Cedric G., and Kurt T. Luckner, Corpus vasorum antiquorum: Toledo Museum of Art, U.S.A. fasc. 17, Toledo, 1976, p. 6, repr. pl. 9, 10.

Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC), Zurich, 1981-1999, vol. II, pt. 1, p. 281, no. 787b.

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, In Motion: Dance and Performance in Art, September 18, 2015- January 3, 2016.