ATTRIBUTED TO THE RYCROFT PAINTER, CIRCA 510 B.C.

As W.G. Moon informs (op. cit., p. 41), the Rycroft Painter, along with his contemporary the Priam Painter, represents the last generation of Athenian vase-painters working in black-figure. The artist kept “black-figure competitive and flexible, in its eleventh hour, to changing markets and tastes” and his “refined graphic sense” is aware of the spatial advantages and increasing naturalism of the burgeoning red-figured technique.
Depicted on one side of this krater is a goddess, perhaps Artemis, driving a quadriga with Apollo standing behind, playing his kithara. The other side depicts Dionysos between two dancing maenads, wearing long chitons and panther skins. Circling the rim are a variety of animals, including boars and lions. Chariot scenes were a favorite subject of the Rycroft Painter. For a similar example, see Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 237.