The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 21, 2024

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora (Storage Vessel): Herakles and Nemean Lion (A); Dionysos, Satyrs, and Maenads (B)

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora (Storage Vessel): Herakles and Nemean Lion (A); Dionysos, Satyrs, and Maenads (B)

515–510 BCE
(Greek, Attic)
Overall: 39.8 cm (15 11/16 in.); Diameter: 29 cm (11 7/16 in.)

Did You Know?

After Herakles strangled the Nemean lion, he wore its pelt as a protective trophy.

Description

The neck-amphora, one of the most popular vase shapes in Archaic Athens, provided painters with ample space for both figural and ornamental decoration. Herakles, the greatest of Greek heroes, performs his most famous deed on the obverse, wrestling the Nemean lion. His patron goddess Athena, together with his nephew Iolaos, holding the hero’s club, stand by. On the other side is an unrelated scene, showing the wine god Dionysos with dancing maenads and satyrs. Abundant ornament covers other areas: stylized lotus blossom and palmette chains on the neck; intricately linked palmettes and lotuses beneath each handle; and a key pattern, linked lotus buds, and rays on the lower body.
  • 1970-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive. BAPD 1494 www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
    Kathman, Barbara. "A Trio of Late Black-Figure Vase Painters." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 2 (1979): 50-66. pp. 57-63, figs. 13-16. 25159617
    Boulter, C. G., Jenifer Neils, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. p. 9, plates 13 & 14, I www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
    Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1970." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 2 (1971). p. 27 www.jstor.org
    Kathman, Barbara A. A Cleveland Bestiary. Cleveland, OH; Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981. Reproduced: p. 26; Mentioned: p. 25, p. 61
    Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC). Zürich: Artemis, 1981. V, PL.42, HERAKLES 1852
    Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome: 9-10 (1983) Pl. 4, Fig. 6
    Keuls, Eva C. The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens. 1985.
    Hedreen, Guy Michael. Silens in Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painting: Myth and Performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. p. 57
    Even, Yael. "Andrea Del Castagno's Eve: Female Heroes as Anomalies in Italian Renaissance Art." Woman's Art Journal 14, no. 2 (1993) p. 41 www.jstor.org
    Keuls, Eva C. Painter and poet in ancient Greece: iconography and the literary arts. Stuttgart: Teubner, 1997. p. 385, Fig.19
    Neils, Jenifer. "Hercle in Cleveland." Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 3 (1998). Mentioned and reproduced: p. 6 www.jstor.org
    Mahlerbe, Anne. “La Quete du Rouge: Reve et Cauchemar du Potier.” La Revue de la Ceramique et du Verre 236 (Janvier-Fevrier 2021): 50-53. Reproduced: P. 50
  • Artlens Exhibition 2019. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer).
    A Cleveland Bestiary. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 15-December 16, 1981).
    Year in Review: 1970. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-March 7, 1971).
  • {{cite web|title=Black-Figure Neck-Amphora (Storage Vessel): Herakles and Nemean Lion (A); Dionysos, Satyrs, and Maenads (B)|url=false|author=Painter of Berlin 1899|year=515–510 BCE|access-date=21 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1970.16