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Preview image of work. terracotta,  Attic Black-Figure Panel Amphora (side A: Dionysos with Maenads and Satyrs) (side B: The return of Hephaistos) 1318
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1915.44

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Attic Black-Figure Panel Amphora (side A: Dionysos with Maenads and Satyrs) (side B: The return of Hephaistos)

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Artist

Painter of Berlin 1686 (ca. 550 B.C.-530 B.C. - )

Title

Attic Black-Figure Panel Amphora (side A: Dionysos with Maenads and Satyrs) (side B: The return of Hephaistos)

Creation Date

ca. 550 BCE

Century

6th century BCE

Dimensions

12 1/2 in. x 8 1/4 in. (31.8 cm. x 21 cm.)

Object Type

ceramic

Creation Place

Ancient Mediterranean, Greece

Medium and Support

terracotta

Credit Line

Gift of Edward Perry Warren, Esq., Honorary Degree, 1926

Copyright

Public Domain

Accession Number

1915.44

This amphora, a type of ceramic vessel used for storing liquids, especially wine, was painted in the latter half of the 6th c. BCE by a vase painter working in Athens. Known as the Painter of Berlin 1686 after his name-sake vessel in the Staatliche Museum in Berlin, the artist worked in the black-figure technique and favored humorous and bawdy scenes. On the amphora in the Bowdoin museum features the Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry, crowned with ivy and holding a rhyton (drinking horn) and a vine of ripe grapes. He is attended on either side by a duo of satyrs and maenads, the woodland creatures and female followers that form his traditional retinue. The opposite panel features a young man riding a mule, accompanied by a group of satyrs and maenads. This narrative scene like depicts to the return of Hephaistos to Olympus. In Greek myth, the Olympian Hephaistos was brought back to Mount Olympus by Dionysus on the back of a mule on account of his lame foot. A particularly ribald note is struck by the mule’s erect phallus, which supports a oenochoe, a vessel used to serve wine.

Additional Media

Additional Image handled side
handled side
Additional Image opposite handled side
opposite handled side
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detail of side
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side
Additional Image opposite handled side
opposite handled side
Additional Image detail of side
detail of side
Additional Image detail of opposite side
detail of opposite side


Keywords: animal   figurative   Greek god   Greek mythology   group of people   horse   Imaginary creature   man   mythology   nude   pattern   procession   satyr   vase   vessel   woman