Athena holding spear and aphlaston (a symbol of naval victory)
Athena holds the curved stern of a trireme (warship) with a decorative attachment at the end. Following a rich strike of silver in Attica, the Athenian commander Themistokles persuaded the assembly to use the financial windfall to build a navy. By 480 B.C., Athens was able to provide the largest contingent of ships when the Greeks faced and defeated the Persians in a naval battle at Salamis. The Athenian navy came to dominate the eastern Mediterranean, and this vase may commemorate a victory at sea.
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Title:Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)
Artist:Attributed to the Brygos Painter
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 480–470 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 13 3/8 in. (34 cm); diameter of body 4 3/16 in. (10.6 cm); diameter of foot 2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm); diameter of mouth 2 7/16 in. (6.2 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Purchase, The Cesnola Collection, by exchange, 1925
Object Number:25.189.1
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. "Recent Accessions in the Classical Department: Vases and Bronzes." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 22(1): pp. 18–19, fig. 4.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall. 1936. Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 48, pp. 69–70, pls. 46, 175, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1946. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey. pp. 63, 80, figs. 23, 60, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 73, 214, pl. 54g, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1958[1946]. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey, Revised Edition, 2nd edn. pp. 63, 80, figs. 23, 60, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 384, no. 211, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Beazley, John D. 1971. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd edition]. p. 366, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1978. Antichnoe iskusstvo iz muzeia Metropoliten, Soedinennye Shtaty Ameriki: Katalog vystavki. no. 55, Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1984. Vol. 2: Aphrodisias-Athena. "Athena," p. 1012, no. 598, pl. 762, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Morris, Sarah P. 1992. Daidalos and The Origins of Greek Art. p. 290, fig. 42, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Miller, Margaret C. 1997. Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century B.C.: A Study in Cultural Receptivity. p. 33 n. 20, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Tzachou-Alexandroi, Olga E. 2001. "Le Stamnos d'Athènes n° 5898 du Peintre de Brygos." Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 125(1): p. 104 n. 60.
Neer, Richard T. 2002. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase Painting: The Craft of Democracy ca. 530-460 B.C.E.. p. 164, fig. 78, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Panvini, Rosalba and Filippo Giudice. 2003. Ta Attika: Veder Greco a Gela Ceramiche Attiche Figurate dall' Antica Colonia no. G55, p. 315, Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider.
Kaltsas, Nikolaos and H. Alan Shapiro. 2008. Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens no. 7, p. 48, New York: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA), Inc.
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