Around the lip, pygmies fighting cranes Around the main surface of the handle, three satyrs; on the ends, Hermes and Perseus; on top, two tritons
Both potter and painter, Nearchos was one of the great artists active about 570 B.C. His son, Tleson, was the major potter of Little Master cups in the succeeding generation. Both were literate; they inscribed their vases. This aryballos is exceptional for the precision and vigor of the figures.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.
Artwork Details
Use your arrow keys to navigate the tabs below, and your tab key to choose an item
Title:Terracotta aryballos (oil flask)
Artist:Signed by Nearchos as potter
Period:Archaic
Date:ca. 570 BCE
Culture:Greek, Attic
Medium:Terracotta; black-figure
Dimensions:H. 3 1/16 in. (7.8 cm)
Classification:Vases
Credit Line:Purchase, The Cesnola Collection, by exchange, 1926
Object Number:26.49
Signature: Signed by Nearchos as potter
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1926. "The Classical Collection: Rearrangement and Important Accessions." Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21(4), part 2: p. 10.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1927. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 88, fig. 55, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1930. Handbook of the Classical Collection. p. 88, fig. 55, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Richter, Gisela M. A. and Marjorie J. Milne. 1935. Shapes and Names of Athenian Vases. p. 16, fig. 103, New York: Plantin Press.
Richter, Gisela M. A. 1953. Handbook of the Greek Collection. pp. 57, 197, pls. 37d, f, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beazley, John D. 1956. Attic Black-figure Vase-painters. pp. 83, 682, no. 4, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bandinelli, Ranuccio Bianchi. 1958. Enciclopedia dell'Arte Antica, Classica e Orientale, Vol. 5. p. 389, fig. 514, Rome: Instituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.
Beazley, John D. 1963[1942]. Attic Red-figure Vase-painters, Vols. 1 and 2, 2nd ed. p. 1607, 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. 30, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Robertson, Martin and Cambridge University Press. 1975. A History of Greek Art, Vols. 1 and 2. pp. 129, 637 n. 122, Cambridge, England.
Maffre, Jean-Jacques. 1975. "Collection Paul Canellopoulos (VIII): Vases béotiens." Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 99(1): p. 438 n. 92.
von Bothmer, Dietrich and Alan L. Boegehold. 1985. The Amasis Painter and His World: Vase-Painting in Sixth-Century B.C. Athens. pp. 39–40, fig. 21, Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Beazley, John D. 1986. The Development of Attic Black Figure, Vol. 24, 2nd ed.. p. 99 [p. 38 n. 11], pl. 32, 5–6, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Brijder, Herman A. G. 1991. Siana Cups II: The Heidelberg Painter, Allard Pierson Series: Studies in Ancient Civilization, Vol. 8. fig. 120, Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Museum.
Cohen, Beth. 1991. "The Literate Potter: A Tradition of Incised Signatures on Attic Vases." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 26: pp. 53, 85, figs. 4–5.
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). 1994. Vol. 7: Oidipous-Theseus. "Perseus," p. 341, no. 153; "Psoleas," p. 568, no. 2, pl. 435; "Pygmaioi," p. 595, no. 2, pl. 467, Zürich: Artemis Verlag.
Lissarrague, Francois. 2000. "A Sun-Struck Satyr in Malibu." Periplous: Papers on Classical Art and Archaeology Presented to Sir John Boardman, Mr. Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, A. J. N. W. Prag, and Anthony M. Snodgrass, eds. p. 192 n. 5, London: Thames and Hudson.
Sparkes, Brian. 2000. "Small World: Pygmies and Co.." World and Image in Ancient Greece, N. Keith Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes, eds. pp. 86–8, fig. 5.1, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Mackay, Anne. 2001. "The Frontal Face and ‘You’. Narrative Disjunction in Early Greek Poetry and Painting." Acta Classica. Proceedings of the Classical Association of South Africa, 44: p. 25 n. 36.
Malagardis, Nassi-Athanasia. 2003. "'Aparxai d'un ceramiste du temps de Nearchos au sanctuaire de la Nymphe." Griechische Keramik im kulturellen Kontext: Akten des Internationalen Vasen-Symposions in Kiel vom 24.-28.9.2001. Veranstaltet durch das Archäologische Institut der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Bernhard Schmaltz and Magdalene Söldner, eds. pp. 32–4, fig. 3.3, Münster: Scriptorium.
Mertens, Joan R. and Beth Cohen. 2006. "Attic White Ground: Potter and Painter." The Colors of Clay: Special Techniques in Athenian Vases, Beth Cohen, ed. pp. 187–88, 193, fig. 2, n. 14, Malibu: J. Paul Getty Trust.
Picón, Carlos A. 2007. Art of the Classical World in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Greece, Cyprus, Etruria, Rome no. 81, pp. 82, 421, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Hedreen, Guy Michael. 2007. "Involved Spectatorship in Archaic Greek Art." Art History, 30(2): pp. 238, fig. 4.17.
Mertens, Joan R. 2010. How to Read Greek Vases. no. 9, pp. 13, 24, 62–5, 82, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Shaw, Carl A. 2014. Satyric Play: The Evolution of Greek Comedy and Satyr Drama. pp. 50–51, fig. 2.13, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hedreen, Guy Michael. 2016. The Image of the Artist in Archaic and Classical Greece: Art, Poetry, and Subjectivity. pp. 205–7, fig. 34, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Moore, Mary B. 2016. "Sophilos and Early Greek Narrative." Metropolitan Museum Journal, 51: pp. 16–17, fig. 9.
Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios. 2016. Epigraphy of Art : Ancient Greek Vase-Inscriptions and Vase-Paintings pp. 30 n. 204, 67 n. 58, Oxford: Archaeopress.
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. pp. 101, 106, Zürich: Akanthus Verlag für Archäologie.
Hedreen, Guy Michael. 2017. "The Frontal Face in Athenian Vase-Painting." The Frame in Classical Art : A Cultural History, Verity Platt and Michael Squire, eds. pp. 174–75, fig. 3.10, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Platt, Verity. 2017. "Introduction." The Frame in Classical Art : A Cultural History, Michael Squire, ed. pp. 174–75, fig. 3.10, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chiarini, Sara. 2018. The So-called Nonsense Inscriptions on Ancient Greek Vases : Between Paideia and Paidiá. pp. 416–17, Leiden/ Boston: Brill.
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2020. ART = Discovering Infinite Connections in Art History. pp. 069, 271, New York: Phaidon Press.
The Met's Libraries and Research Centers provide unparalleled resources for research and welcome an international community of students and scholars.
The Met Collection API is where all makers, creators, researchers, and dreamers can connect to the most up-to-date data and public domain images for The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.
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.
