Dionysos among satyrs and maenads. On the bottom, round face
A situla is a bucket that served to decant wine. The shape is well attested in metal examples and in terracotta counterparts of different types. This piece presents a spirited depiction of the wine-god Dionysos driving his griffin-drawn chariot to a gathering of his followers. Particularly engaging is the old satyr dipping a jug into the decorated calyx-krater, probably to fill the libation bowl in his left hand. On the back, Dionysos is seated between a satyr and a maenad and is surrounded by attributes, including a fawn, a cista (cylindrical box), and wreaths.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta situla (bucket)
Artist:Attributed to the Lycurgus Painter
Period:Late Classical
Date:ca. 360–340 BCE
Culture:Greek, South Italian, Apulian
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 10 11/16 in. (27.1 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Fletcher Fund, 1956
Object Number:56.171.64
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1957. "Greek Vases from the Hearst Collection." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15(7): pp. 166, 179.
Oliver, Andrew Jr. 1962. "The Lycurgus Painter: An Apullian Artist of the Fourth Century B.C." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21(1): pp. 26–30, figs. 1, 3, 8.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1972. Greek Vase Painting: An Introduction. p. 6, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
von Bothmer, Dietrich. 1972. "Greek Vase Painting." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 31(1): p. 6.
Smith, H.R.W. 1976. Funerary Symbolism in Apulian Vase-Painting. pp. 76, 78–79, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mayo, Margaret Ellen and Kenneth Hamma. 1982. The Art of South Italy: Vases from Magna Graecia p. 235, Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1986. Vol. 3: Atherion-Eros. "Dionysos," p. 463, no. 462, pl. 353, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Chiesa, Gemma Sena. 2006. "I Vasi a Figure Rosse del Periodo Apulo Medio: il Nuovo Linguaggio Figurativo, il Prestigio del Mito e la Celebrazione Aristocratica." Ceramiche Attiche e Magnogreche : Collezione Banca Intesa : Catalogo Ragionato, 2, Fabrizio Slavazzi and Fatima Terzo, eds. p. 240, fig. 4, Milano: Electa.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 180, pp. 159, 438, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Heuer, Keely Elizabeth. 2015. "Vases with Faces: Isolated Heads in South Italian Vase Painting." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 50: p. 75, figs. 26a–c.
Trendall, Arthur Dale. 2016. Myth, Drama and Style in South Italian Vase-Painting: Selected Papers by A.D. Trendall, Ian Mcphee, ed. pp. 115, 120, 228, fig. 5, Uppsala: Paul Aströms Förlag.
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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.