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.
Help us make our collections more accessible by providing keywords to describe this artwork. The BCMA uses the
Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus to
provide consistent keywords. Enter a keyword in the field below and you will be prompted with a list of possible matching AAT preferred terms.
