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Overview: handle left

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Rim: view from above

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Overview: handle front

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Overview: handle oblique left rear

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Shoulder decoration: palmettes

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Main panel: satyr

Collection: Johns Hopkins University Museum, Baltimore
Summary: Satyr crouching on rock flanked by young men riding dolphins
Ware: Attic Black Figure
Painter: Attributed to the Athena Painter
Context: Said to be from Gela
Date: ca. 490 BC
Dimensions:

H. 0.318 m., D. 0.126 m., D. foot 0.085 m.

Primary Citation: Haspels 1936, 255 no. 14
Shape: Lekythos
Region: Sicily
Period: Late Archaic


Decoration Description:

The neck is glazed inside. On the shoulder is a band of five nine-petal palmettes with the central one inverted, the others upright and angled toward the handle. Dots flank the base and topmost petal of each palmette. Above is a band of tongues beneath a red line. The glazed handle has its underside reserved.

Body: a youth in right profile astride a dolphin extends his right arm with a phiale toward a satyr who crouches on a rock, right knee drawn up, right arm extended with an oinochoe in his right hand. Vine tendrils grow from the rock. Behind the satyr are another youth and dolphin seen in right profile. Added white is used for the bellies of the dolphins, lines on the rock, and flowers on the satyr's oinochoe.

Above the picture is a band of zigzag between two pairs of bounding lines. A red line runs beneath the scene and another between the body and foot.

The subject may represent Arion, Taras, or Theseus, who rode a dolphin on his visit to the Nereids or to Amphitrite. Beazley suggested that the second rider may be merely one of the repeat figures that characterize late black-figure lekythoi, and that the satyr was derived from a satyr play (JHS 58 (1938) 268, JHS 54 (1934) 90).

Essay:

RW No. 109

Collection History:

From Robinson collection.

Sources Used:

Williams 1984, 161-2, no. 109

Other Bibliography:

CVA, Robinson 1 (USA 4) 151, pl. XXXVII