Details
AN APULIAN RED-FIGURED CALYX-KRATER
Attributed to the Underworld Painter, circa 335 B.C.
The obverse depicting the Punishment of Dirke and Lykos, the center of the lower register with the fallen Dirke, her diaphanous garment still swirling around her legs from the fall, a thyrsos below her, the bull above her, the cords by which she was originally tied clearly visible streaming from its horns to below her arms, the winged female daimon Lyssa to the left in a the costume of a huntress with high boots, holding the cord in one hand and a whip in the other, and the male daimon Oistros to the right, the personification of frenzy or madness, nude but for an animal skin and high boots, a club in his left and a whip in his right, with writhing snakes in his curly hair, a tambourine below him, to the right a balding and bearded herdsman with his right arm raised in the attitude of the paidagogos, wearing a short tunic over a long-sleeved undergarment, a red-bordered white chlamys and a petasos over his shoulders, a stick in his left hand, a dog at his feet, a gesticulating maenad twirling at the far left; the center of the upper register with Lykos seated on an altar, being attacked by Amphion and Zethos, Lykos wearing a patterned tunic with long sleeves, a mantle draped over his gesturing left arm and legs, a stick in his right hand, Amphion to the left with a mantle and a petasos over his shoulders, Zethos to the right with a mantle over his left arm, his sword drawn, with Hermes before him saving Lykos from death, the god wearing winged boots, a petasos and a chlamys, his kerykeion in his right hand, with two draped women to the left, one seated and the other, white-haired, standing, gesturing with two extended fingers, with Pan at the far left, an animal skin over his left arm, leaning on a stick, and two draped woman to the far right, one standing holding a ball, and one seated holding a mirror; below the scenes a band of palmettes and lotus buds above a narrow band of egg-pattern; the reverse with a six-figured Dionysiac scene in two registers, the upper with a seated maenad to the left with a tambourine, thyrsos and fillet, and a satyr to the right with a wreath and a laurel branch, an Eros between them with a fillet flying above Dionysos who is seated in the center of the lower register, holding a thyrsos and a phiale, a satyr to the left with a calyx-krater and a maenad to the right with a torch and a situla, below the scene a band of meander with two checkered squares above a narrow band of ovolo; a band of berried laurel below the rim
25 in. (63.5 cm) high
Literature
Trendall, "Two Apulian Calyx-Kraters with Representations of Amphion and Zethos" in Enthousiasmos Vol. 6, Festschrift Hemelrijk, Allard Pierson Series, pp. 157-166.
Heger, "Dirke" in LIMC, III, p. 636, no. 6, pl. 505,5.
Trendall, Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily, no. p. 91, no. 211
Trendall, "On the Divergence of South Italian from Attic Red-figure Vase-painting," pl. 24,4 in Descoeudres, ed., Greek Colonists and Native Populations
Trendall and Cambitoglou, Second Supplement to the Red-Figured Vases of Apulia, Part I, no. 18/318a.
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