Zeus and the Infant Dionysos
Zeus, with the scepter in his left hand, approaches from the right holding in his arms the infant Dionysos. He hands out the child to a woman sitting on a stool in front of an Ionic column. Her lifted right hand expresses her willingness to receive the infant. Dionysus and the woman have a branch of ivy in their hand. Behind her, another female figure with a scepter in her right hand turns to her left to observe the scene. While the two gods are easy identifiable, nothing characterizes these female figures. As the scene takes place inside a palace, the identification of the two female figures as nymphs is problematic. A more realistic hypothesis identifies the seated female character with Ino, wife of Athamas, king of Boeotia, to which Dionysus had been entrusted to escape the anger and the jealousy of Hera. The female figure standing behind Ino, considering the scepter in her right hand, would represent Hera: menacing figure, evocation of a vengeful fury against the infant Dionysus.
Of the divine male children depicted in red-figure, Dionysos is by far the favorite character, particularly between about 470 and 435 BC. In total he appears in surviving red-figure some thirty times in a variety of contexts, ranging from his first birth from Semele or his second birth from Zeus's thigh to his delivery by Zeus or by Hermes into the care of the nymphs of Nysa, a silen, Papposilenos, or Athamas and Ino.
Source: Cécile Colonna, “De Rouge et de Noir – Les vases grecs de la collection Luyenes”
CARC / CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Black-figure amphora – Luynes 686
Height 38,2 cm.; width 43 cm.
Attributed to The Syleus Painter
Ca. 480 BC
From Agrigento
Paris, Department of Coins, Medals and Antiquities
Zeus and the Infant Dionysos
Zeus, with the scepter in his left hand, approaches from the right holding in his arms the infant Dionysos. He hands out the child to a woman sitting on a stool in front of an Ionic column. Her lifted right hand expresses her willingness to receive the infant. Dionysus and the woman have a branch of ivy in their hand. Behind her, another female figure with a scepter in her right hand turns to her left to observe the scene. While the two gods are easy identifiable, nothing characterizes these female figures. As the scene takes place inside a palace, the identification of the two female figures as nymphs is problematic. A more realistic hypothesis identifies the seated female character with Ino, wife of Athamas, king of Boeotia, to which Dionysus had been entrusted to escape the anger and the jealousy of Hera. The female figure standing behind Ino, considering the scepter in her right hand, would represent Hera: menacing figure, evocation of a vengeful fury against the infant Dionysus.
Of the divine male children depicted in red-figure, Dionysos is by far the favorite character, particularly between about 470 and 435 BC. In total he appears in surviving red-figure some thirty times in a variety of contexts, ranging from his first birth from Semele or his second birth from Zeus's thigh to his delivery by Zeus or by Hermes into the care of the nymphs of Nysa, a silen, Papposilenos, or Athamas and Ino.
Source: Cécile Colonna, “De Rouge et de Noir – Les vases grecs de la collection Luyenes”
CARC / CAVI @ www.beazley.ox.ac.uk
Black-figure amphora – Luynes 686
Height 38,2 cm.; width 43 cm.
Attributed to The Syleus Painter
Ca. 480 BC
From Agrigento
Paris, Department of Coins, Medals and Antiquities