1962.02

Attic Black-Figure Lekythos

Purchased. Ht 15.8cm; diam. 6cm.

Intact and in good condition.

The scene on the body has Herakles fighting the Amazons. In the centre Herakles, wearing his lionskin and wielding his club charges right over a falling Amazon to meet another attacking from the right, spear and shield raised. A third Amazon in similar pose moves off to the left; she carres a Boeotian shield by contrast with the round shields of the other two.

White is added for the flesh of the Amazons and for Herakles’ club; note that the last is painted directly over the clay. Red is added for the helmet plumes, the stripes on the tunic of the left Amazon, the belt and skirt of Herakles’ chitoniskos, the shield rims of the centre and right Amazons, and for the dots decorating the scabbards of the left and right Amazons.

Above the scene is a dot-band. The shoulder and neck were given a white ground with, on the shoulder, a zone of lotus buds with bars above. The mouth is black inside and out and there is a band of red on the top. The outside and the edges of the handle are black. There is a red line on the broad black band below the scene and another two at the top of the black on the lower wall. The underside is reserved as is a band on the vertical face of the foot.

The lekythos is attributed to the Diosphos Painter and is typical of his lively if rather careless style. He is fond of figures running left with one leg raised, like the first and third Amazons here. See C.H.E. Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekythoi (Paris 1936) 100-114 and in Revue Archéologique 1972, 103-110, J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford 1956) 508-511, J. Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases. A Handbook (London 1974) 148-149. For more recent work on the painter and his relations with the Haimon Group, see C. Jubier-Galinier, “L’atelier des peintres des Diosphos et de Haimon”, in P. Rouillard and A. Verbanck-Piérard (eds), Le vase grec et ses destins (Munich 2003) 79-89. Note also the same author’s article “Les peintres de Sappho et de Diosphos, structure d’atelier”, in: M.-C. Villanueva Puig, F. Lissarrague, P. Rouillard and A. Rouveret (eds), Céramique et peinture grecques: modes d’emploi. Actes du colloque international, École du Louvre, 26-27-28 avril 1995 (Paris 1999) 181-186. The shape of the lekythos is that classified as type DL: see D.C. Kurtz, Athenian White Lekythoi (Oxford 1975) 80 and 96ff. The Diosphos Painter seems to have concentrated on the decoration of lekythoi and alabastra. First quarter of the fifth century bc.

For the subject-matter, compare another lekythos by the same painter, D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford 1957) pl. 42, 3 and more especially pl. 43, 4-5; on p. 55, von Bothmer gives a list of such scenes in which the central Amazon is collapsing while that on the right, formerly shown as giving assistance, is now the protagonist, and that on the left makes off without a backward glance.

For other Herakles scenes in the collection, see the Attic black-figure amphora 1984.02 (Herakles and the Nemean Lion), and the black-figure lekythoi 1973.06 (Herakles and the Erymanthian boar) and 1973.10 (Herakles and the Bull). There has been a great deal of discussion of the socio-political significance of these scenes: for a good overview, see H.A. Shapiro, Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens (Mainz 1989) 157-163. For some further treatments with discussions of the relevant arguments, see D. Williams, “Herakles, Peisistratos and the Alkmeonids”, in: F. Lissarrague and F. Thelamon (eds), Image et céramique grecque. Actes du Colloque de Rouen, 25-26 novembre 1982 (Rouen 1983) 131-142; U. Huttner, Die politische Rolle der Heraklesgestalt im griechischen Herrschertum (Historia Einzelschriften, 112, Stuttgart 1997), esp. 25ff. on the Peisistratids; H. Brandt, “Herakles und Peisistratos, oder: Mythen und Geschichte. Anmerkungen zur Interpretation vorklassischer Vasenbilder”, Chiron 27, 1997, 315-334; and R. Rosati, “Eracle: l’immagine e il politico”, in: I. Colpo, I. Favaretto and F. Ghedini (eds), Iconografia 2001. Studi sull'immagine (Atti del Convegno di Padova 30 maggio - 1 giugno 2001) (Rome 2002) 123-134, with good bibliography. For the treatment of Herakles on vases of this workshop, see C. Jubier-Galinier, “Héraclès entre bêtes et dieux dans l’atelier des peintres de Sappho et de Diosphos”, in: C. Bonnet, C. Jourdain-Annequin and V. Pirenne-Delforge (éds), Le Bestiaire d’Héraclès. IIIe Rencontre héracléenne (Kernos Suppl. 7, Liège 1998) 75-85.

Sotheby (London), Sale Cat., 17 December 1962, no. 173; J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford 1971) 249; Brommer, Vasenlisten3 17 no. 102; J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 27. T.H. Carpenter, with T. Mannack and M. Mendonca, Beazley Addenda, 2nd edition (Oxford 1989): 127; Beazley Archive Pottery Database 361427.