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Terracotta lekythos (oil flask), Attributed to the Sabouroff Painter, Terracotta, Greek, Attic

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

Attributed to the Sabouroff Painter
Period:
Classical
Date:
ca. 450 B.C.
Culture:
Greek, Attic
Medium:
Terracotta; white-ground
Dimensions:
H. 12 7/16 in. (31.6 cm)
Classification:
Vases
Credit Line:
Rogers Fund, 1921
Accession Number:
21.88.17
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 159
Charon, Hermes, and youth

Hermes, identifiable by his winged boots and herald's staff, beckons a young man, the deceased, toward Charon's boat. Charon wears the clothing typical of a Greek workman—the exomis, a tunic that is fastened on one shoulder and leaves both arms free and bare, and a cap with a narrow brim.
Pottier, Edmond. 1883. Étude sur les Lcythes Blancs Attiques à Représentations Funéraires. pl. 3, Paris: Thorin et Fils.

Richter, Gisela M. A. 1923. "Three Athenian White Lekythoi." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 18(8): p. 193, figs. 3–4.

Richter, Gisela M. A. 1946. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey. p. 113, fig. 81, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 88, 229, pl. 69c, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Richter, Gisela M. A. 1958[1946]. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey, Revised Edition, 2nd edn. p. 113, fig. 81, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 846, no. 197, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1986. Vol. 3: Atherion-Eros. "Charon I," p. 213, no. 7b, pl. 168, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1990. Vol. 5: Herakles-Kenchrias. "Hermes," p. 337, no. 611c, pl. 249, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.

Oakley, John H. 2004. Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi. p. 108, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Essays
Death, Burial, and the Afterlife in Ancient Greece
Greek Gods and Religious Practices

Timelines
Ancient Greece, 1000 B.C.-1 A.D.

Greek and Roman Art (17,258)
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