ATTRIBUTED TO THE PAINTER OF THE DANCING SATYRS, CIRCA 500 B.C.

According to Greek mythology, it was Theseus who killed the bull-headed monster in the Cretan labyrinth, rather than Herakles (Hercle), as here. In reference to the misunderstood scene, Schwarz suggests (pp. 251-252, "Herakles/Hercle" in LIMC) a conflation of the two myths, Herakles and the Cretan bull and Theseus and the Minotaur, rather than a lost local Etruscan legend. For a similar example by the same painter now in the Louvre see no. 329 in Schwarz, op. cit. For the painter's name vase, with similarly-depicted satyrs, now in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, see no. 136 in Martelli, et al., La Ceramica degli Etruschi, La pittura vascolare.