Lot Essay
For a bilingual eye-cup with similar treatment of the closed palmettes and eyes, attributed by Beazley as near to Oltos, see Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 2000242. The tondo of the cup presented here, with a satyr caressing a doe, is particularly fine. While both figures are enlivened by added color, the fur of the satyr is further defined by a pattern of incision that does not penetrate the surface in the standard black-figure manner. For related shallow incisions see the fleece and horns of Odysseus's ram on a column-krater by the Sappho Painter in Karlsruhe, no. 54 in B. Cohen, The Colors of Clay, Special Techniques in Athenian Vases.