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Dionysos’ kylix by Exekias - II

External surface: Battles over fallen heroes (fight for the body of Patroklos?). On both sides A and B, large apotropaic eyes like those on East Greek cups, with eyebrows and diminutive noses. Beneath and on either sides of the handles, warriors fight over a fallen hero.

 

Inner surface: Dionysos reclines on a sailing ship while seven dolphins swim in a coral-red sea around the boat

 

This black-figured eye-cup, signed by Exekias as potter and painter, is one of the most famous Athenian vases. Exekias was the greatest of black-figure artists, and he brought the style to its limits. It is hardly credible that so much human dignity and pathos can be expressed in so artificial a convention.

Exported from Athens in antiquity, this large cup with a diameter of 30.5 cm was found in an Etruscan tomb at Vulci.

 

Source Beth Cohen, “The Color of Clay”

 

CARC/CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk

 

Attic black-figured kylix

Attributed to Exekias as potter & painter

Made in Athens, ca. 530 BC

From Vulci, Viterbo

Munich, Antikensammlungen.

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Uploaded on December 12, 2015
Taken on December 6, 2015