The workshop of the Meidias Painter was the major source of large pots during the last two decades of the fifth century B.C. This masterpiece exemplifies his ability to accommodate delicate, elaborate compositions to large, sturdy shapes. Musaios, a mythical musician, is characterized here as Thracian by his long-sleeved tunic and high fur boots. Below him, to the left, appear his wife, Deiope, and his son, Eumolpos. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, is shown with Peitho, the personification of persuasion, in addition to five muses. The idyllic quality of the scene continues on the reverse where Deianeira, the wife of Herakles, reveals herself to her husband. The emphasis is on respite and glory rather than the toils of Herakles' life.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Terracotta pelike (jar)
Artist:Attributed to the Meidias Painter
Period:Classical
Date:ca. 420–410 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; red-figure
Dimensions:H. 18 7/8 in. (48 cm); diameter 13 11/16 in. (34.8 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Samuel D. Lee Fund, 1937
Object Number:37.11.23
Inscription: The names of the figures are inscribed.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1938. "A New Vase by the Meidias Painter." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 33(12): pp. 262–65, fig. 1–3.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1944, 1949. Greek Painting: The Development of Pictorial Representation from Archaic to Graeco-Roman Times. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1946. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey. p. 147, fig. 114, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 102, 242, pl. 82d, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1958[1946]. Attic Red-Figured Vases: A Survey, Revised Edition, 2nd edn. p. 147, fig. 114, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 1313, no. 7, 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. 477, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Knigge, Ursula. 1975. "Aison, der Meidiasmaler? Zu einer rotfigurigen Oinochoe aus dem Kerameikos." Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung, 90: p. 135 n. 35.
Queyrel, Anne. 1984. "Scènes apolliniennes et dionysiaques du Peintre de Pothos." Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 108(1): pp. 140 n. 14, 144 n. 20, 147 n. 37, 151 n. 52.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1988. Vol. 4: Eros-Herakles. "Eumolpos," p. 56, no. 1, pl. 25; "Harmonia," p. 413, no. 13, pl. 241; "Herakles," p.835, no.1681, pl. 559, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Philippaki, Barbara. 1988. "Apollonos Echilasmos." Studies in Honor of T. B. L. Webster, John H. Betts, J. T. Hooker, and John Richard Green, eds. p. 92 n. 30–1, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.
Maas, Martha and Jane McIntosh Snyder. 1989. Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece. pp. 145, 152, 160, 164, figs. 10, 16, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Shapiro, Harvey Alan. 1993. Personifications in Greek Art: The Representation of Abstract Concepts, 600-400 B.C.. pp. 62, 106–8, 122, 203–4, 240–41, fig. 48, Zürich: Akanthus.
Bonamici, Marisa. 1993. "Le muse in Etruria." Prospettiva, 70: pp. 11–2, 17, fig. 32.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1994. Vol. 7: Oidipous-Theseus. "Peitho," p. 246, no. 30, pl. 180; "Pothos I," p. 501, no. 3, pl. 394, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Raftopoulou, Eliana G. 2000. "A Fine Example of Toreutic Art from Epirus." From the Parts to the Whole: Acta of the 13th International Bronze Congress held at Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 28 - June 1, 1996, Carol Mattusch, Amy Brauer, and Sandra E. Knudsen, eds. p. 160 n. 21, Portsmith, R.I.: Journal of Roman Archaeology.
Tsiafakis, Despoina S. 2000. "The Allure and Repulsion of Thracians in the Art of Classical Athens." Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art, Beth Cohen, ed. p. 379 n. 67, Leiden: Brill.
Bundrick, Sheramy. 2005. Music and Image in Fifth-century Athens. fig. 32, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lezzi-Hafter, Adrienne, Cécile Jubier-Galinier, Leslie Threatte, Jan-Matthias Müller, and Kristine Gex. 2016. Potters - Painters - Scribes : Inscriptions on Attic Vases, Rudolf Wachter, ed. p. 150, Zürich: Akanthus Verlag für Archäologie.
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