Description Obverse, artist painting a statue of Herakles
Ancient sculpture was painted. Although faint remnants of polychromy can be discerned on some objects, the original effect has been lost. This vase provides a rare example of the actual painting process, in which the encaustic pigments were mixed with wax. On the obverse, an artist paints a lion-skin on a marble statue of Herakles. To the left of the statue, a youth tends a charcoal brazier on which the wax mixture and the tools are being warmed. The artist, to the right, is recognizable by his cap and by his garment worn so as to afford maximum coolness and freedom of movement. A small container in his left hand holds the pigment, which he applies with a tool like a knife or spatula. Zeus and a Nike (personification of victory) watch from on high, and at the far right Herakles himself approaches. On the reverse of the krater, Athena is seated with one of Dioskouroi.
Selected Bibliography Bothmer, D. von. 1951. "Enkaustes Agalmaton." MMA Bulletin, n.s., 9: 156-61, ill.
Richter, G. M. A. 1959. Handbook of Greek Art. London: Phaidon, p. 275, fig. 395.
Cambitoglou, A., and A. D. Trendall. 1961. Apulian Red-Figured Vase-Painters of the Plain Style. N.p.: Archaeological Institute of America, p. 19.
Shefton, B. B. 1962. "Herakles and Theseus on a Red-Figured Louterion." Hesperia 31: 368.
Richter, G. M. A. 1970. "The Department of Greek and Roman Art: Triumphs and Tribulations." Metropolitan Museum Journal 3: 83, 87, fig. 28.
Trendall, A. D., and A. Cambitoglou. 1978. The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 266-67, no. 47, pl. 89, 1.
Hamma, K. 1982. In The Art of South Italy: Vases from Magna Graecia, edited by M. E. Mayo. Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, pp. 96-99, no. 27, ill.
Carratelli, G. P. 1996. The Western Greeks. Milan: Bompiani, p. 726, no. 288, ill.
De Cesare, M. 1997. Le statue in immagine: Studi sulle raffigurazioni di statue nella pittura vascolare greca. Rome: "L'Erma" di Bretschneider, pp. 32, 73, n. 154, 103, 175-76, 183, 218, nos. 177, 391, 494, fig. 52.
Pipili, M. 2000. "Wearing an Other Hat: Workmen in Town and Country." In Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art, edited by B. Cohen. Leiden: Brill, p. 160, n. 26.
Picón, C. A., et al. 2007. Art of the Classical World in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 437-38, no. 176, ill. p. 155.
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