ATTRIBUTED TO EPIKTETOS, CIRCA 510 B.C.

This impressive volute-krater fragment is an unusually large vase for Epiktetos. Other than one calyx-krater painted early in his career, he was primarily a specialist in smaller vases, principally cups of various form and plates (see pp. 57-58 in J. Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases, The Archaic Period). Depicted on the neck of this fragment is a Dionysiac thiasos, framed below by elegant adorsed palmettes and above by a band of key on the vessel rim. The god is at the center, walking right but looking back, with a rhyton and grape vines in his hands, while a satyr and a maenad approach from either side, followed by satyrs and donkeys. For a similar thiasos on a skyphos by Epiktetos now in The British Museum, see pl. L in D. Paléothodoros, Épictétos. Inscriptions in the field include HIPPARCHOS KALOS.