Lot 37
37
AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED LEKYTHOS
AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED LEKYTHOS
AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED LEKYTHOS
AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED LEKYTHOS
3 More
AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED LEKYTHOS

ATTRIBUTED TO THE PAINTER OF THE YALE LEKYTHOS, CIRCA 470-460 B.C.

Details
AN ATTIC RED-FIGURED LEKYTHOS
ATTRIBUTED TO THE PAINTER OF THE YALE LEKYTHOS, CIRCA 470-460 B.C.
16 ¼ in. (41.2 cm.) high
Provenance
Dr. Ernst Berger (1928-2006), Basel, acquired circa 1960s-1980s.
Kunstwerke der Antike, Auktion 5, Jean-David Cahn AG, Basel, 23 September 2005, lot 52.
Kunstwerke der Antike, Auktion 2, Cahn Auktionen, Basel, 21 September 2007, lot 302.
Dr. Manfred Zimmermann (1935-2011), Bremen, Germany; thence by descent to the current owner.
Literature
J. Boardman, "Herakles," Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Supplementum 1, Dusseldorf, 2009, pt. 1, p. 244, no. add.11; pt. 2, p. 126, no. add.11.
F. Hildebrandt, Antike Bilderwelten: Was griechische Vasen erzählen, Darmstadt, 2017, pp. 26-27, fig. 18; p. 148, no. 61.
Beazley Archive Pottery Database no. 9022288.
Digital LIMC Database no. 201103.
Exhibited
Bremen, Antikenmuseum im Schnoor, 2005-2018.
Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 2018-2023.

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Hannah Fox Solomon
Hannah Fox Solomon Head of Department, Specialist
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Lot Essay

On the body of this large lekythos, Athena offers a libation to Herakles. The goddess wears her aegis over a patterned garment, holding an oinochoe in her raised hand and a spear in the other. The hero is shown leaning on his club, the lionskin tied at his chest, receiving the libation from Athena in a kantharos held in his right hand; in his lowered left hand he holds a fruit.

The scene is repeated on another lekythos by the Painter of the Yale Lekythos, now in the Musées Royaux in Brussels, p. 659, no. 41 in J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, second edition. According to J. Boardman (pp. 152-153 in LIMC, vol. V), “the most intimate of the scenes between hero and goddess involve more specific acts of either libation or a handshake.” Herakles’ pose “is a restful one, possibly even indicating tiredness” and may suggest that the libation signifies his welcoming to Mount Olympus after the completion of his Labors.

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