Obverse and reverse, birth of Athena from the head of Zeus
Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, had the distinction of being born fully formed and fully armed from the head of Zeus, the chief of the gods. Much favored during the first half of the sixth century B.C., scenes of this event include numerous figures and allow for various responses to the unusual circumstances. Here the birth has occurred, and Athena is about to sally forth from her father's lap.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta kylix (drinking cup)
Artist:Attributed to the Painter of the Nicosia Olpe
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 550 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm) diameter 8 in. (20.3 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1906
Object Number:06.1097
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1917. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 75, fig. 45, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 85, fig. 53, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 85, fig. 53, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Marjorie J. Milne. 1935. Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases. p. 25, fig. 160, New York: Plantin Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 57, 197, pl. 37a, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America 11. The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2. Attic Black-Figured Kylikes. pls. XXII, XL, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1956. Attic Black-figure Vase-painters. pp. 199, 689, no. 2 bottom, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Beazley, John D. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd edition]. pp. 80, 197, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1984. Vol. 2: Aphrodisias-Athena. "Athena," p. 989, no. 369, pl. 746, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Steiner, Ann. 1993. "The Meaning of Repetition: Visual Redundancy on Archaic Athenian Vases." Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 108: fig. 3.
Gebauer, Jörg. 2002. Pompe und Thysia: Attische Tieropferdarstellungen auf schwarz- und rotfigurigen Vasen. pp.92 n. 412, 178 n. 693, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 85, pp. 83, 422, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Chiarini, Sara. 2018. The So-called Nonsense Inscriptions on Ancient Greek Vases : Between Paideia and Paidiá. pp. 414–15, Leiden/ Boston: Brill.
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The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than 30,000 works ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312.
