Obverse, Jason about to seize the Golden Fleece, the stern of the Argo at the right Reverse, woman between two youths
Jason led the Argonauts, a band of adventurers who set out on the ship Argo to steal the magical golden fleece of a ram, which was preserved in Kolchis on the Black Sea. With the help of the gods and the sorceress Medea, Jason was able to take the fleece from a grove protected by a dragon. Here, with Athena beside him, he reaches for the fleece. A companion prepares to board the ship. The basis of the legend of the Golden Fleece is probably the ancient practice of extracting alluvial gold by causing the deposits in a stream to wash over a fleece, thereby catching the gold-bearing material in the curly pelt.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta column-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water)
Artist:Attributed to the Orchard Painter
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 470–460 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. with handles 11 1/2 in. (29.2 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1934
Object Number:34.11.7
Said to be from Gela (Beazley 1942, p. 347, no. 22.)
[Until 1934, with Jacob Hirsch, New York]; acquired in December 1934, purchased from Jacob Hirsch.
1935. Annual Report of the Trustees/ Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1934: no. 66, p. 23.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1935. "Jason and the Golden Fleece." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 30(4): pp. 86–88.
Dugas, Charles. 1936. "Bulletin archéologique: Céramique. Peinture. Mosaïque." Revue des Études Grecques, 49: p. 225, pl. 3, 2.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Lindsley F. Hall. 1936. Red-Figured Athenian Vases in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. no. 88, pp. 118–20, pl. 90, pl. 170, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Hadas, M. 1936. "The Tradition of a Feeble Jason." Classical Philology, 31 (2): pp. 166–8.
Greifenhagen, Adolf. 1936. "Ausserattische schwarzfiguren Vasen." `av,., 51: p. 350.
Radermacher, Ludwig. 1938. Mythos und Sage bei den Griechen, 2nd.. p. 169, fig. 9, Brünn/München/Wien: Rudolf M. Rohrer Verlag.
Beazley, John D. 1942. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters. p. 347, no. 22, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1946. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey. p. 92, fig. 32g, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 87, 225, pl. 65g, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Stella, Luigia Achillea. 1956. Mitologia Greca. p. 576, Turin: Unione Tipografico-editrice Torinese.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1958[1946]. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey, Revised Edition, 2nd edn. p. 92, fig. 32g, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Paribeni, Enrico. 1960. "Frutteto, Pittore del." Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. III. pp. 749–50, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Beckel, Guntram. 1961. Götterbeistand in der Bildüberlieferung griechischer Heldensagen. no. 96, pp. 78, 144, Waldsassen: Stiftland-Verlag.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 524, no. 28, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1970. Perspective in Greek and Roman Art. p. 25, n. 3, fig. 102, New York and London: Phaidon Press.
Christopoulos, George A. 1975. History of the Hellenic World: The Archaic Period, Vol. 1. p. 156, fig, 69, Athens: Ekdotike Athenon.
Hammond, N.G.L. and Warren G. Moon. 1978. "Illustrations of Early Tragedy at Athens." American Journal of Archaeology, 82(3): pp. 377–78, fig. 7.
Pinney, Gloria Ferrari and Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway. 1979. Aspects of Ancient Greece no. 41, pp. 88–89, Allentown, Penn.: Allentown Art Museum.
Meyer, Hugo. 1980. Medeia und die Peliaden, eine attische Novelle und ihre Entstehung. Ein Versuch zur Sagenforschung auf archäologischer Grundlage. no. III Va, p. 82, 90f, pl. 18.2, Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore.
Freytag gen. Löringhoff, Bettina von and Carlo De Simone. 1982. "Argonautika. Ein etruskischer Spiegel in der Tübinger Sammlung." Praestant interna : Festschrift für Ulrich Hausmann, Bettina von Freytag gen. Löringhoff, ed. p. 274, notes 11, 16, pl. 60.5, Tübingen.
King, Charles William Reverend. 1983. "Who is that Cloaked Man? Observations on the Early Fifth Century B.C. Pictures of the Golden Fleece." American Journal of Archaeology, 87(3): pp. 385–87, pl. 55, fig. 1.
Moret, J.-M. 1984. Œdipe, la Sphinx et les thébains: essai de mythologie iconographique, Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana 23, 2 vols. p. 140, n. 4, Rome: Institut suisse de Rome.
Boardman, John. 1989. Athenian Red Figure Vases: The Classical Period, a Handbook. fig. 43, London: Thames and Hudson.
Carpenter, Thomas H., Thomas Mannack, and Melanie Mendonça. 1989. Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV² & Paralipomena. no. 524, p. 254, Oxford.
Shapiro, H.A. 1994. Myth into Art: Poet and Painter in Classical Greece. pp. 97–98, fig. 65, London: Routledge.
Lordkipanidze, Nino. 2008. "Medea's Colchis." Wine, Worship, and Sacrifice: The Golden Grave sof Ancient Vani, Jennifer Chi, ed. pp. 22–23, fig. 1, New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University.
Mitchell, Alexandre G. 2009. Greek Vase-painting and the Origins of Visual Humour. p. 223 n. 331, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hemingway, Seán. 2023. "The Gosford Wellhead : An Ancient Roman Masterpiece." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 80(3): p. 38, fig. 46.
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