Interior, left half: man, bird, bird's nest

Interior, right half: man, bird

Detail of left half of interior: bird's nest

Exterior of cup

Detail of right half of interior: bird in tree

Overview of interior of cup

Collection: Paris, Musée du Louvre
Summary: Interior: man (Dionysos?) among trees.
Ware: Ionian Black Figure
Context: From Etruria
Date: ca. 550 BC
Primary Citation: CVA, Louvre 8, pl. 78
Shape: Cup
Region: Etruria
Period: Archaic

Decoration Description:

Interior: two trees fill the entire interior of the cup, stemming from near the center of the bowl, their trunks pointing at 180 degrees to each other and reaching to the rim, and their branches spreading back to fill the entire field. Between the two trees, a man or god wearing a short skirt-like garment stands or runs perpendicularly to the two tree trunks (there is no groundline). He grasps the ends of branches in both hands. In the tree to the left, bird's nest is visible at the top of the trunk, with nestlings waiting inside. A mother bird is flying toward the nest, bringing food to her young. A giant cicada sits in a branch nearby, while a snake climbs the tree below the nest to prey on the nestlings. Perched on the main branch of the righthand tree is a second bird. Both trees appear to be newly leafed out for spring, with copious blossoms and small vines throughout as well.

Around the rim of the vessel is a frieze of ivy.

Henrichs suggests that the snake stalking the fledglings refers to a scene from the Kypria, when the Greeks, after sacrificing at Aulis, witness a snake kill a mother bird and her young (A. Henrichs, "Myth Visualized: Dionysos and his Circle in Sixth-Century Attic Vase-Painting," in Papers on the Amasis Painter and his World (M. True, ed.; Malibu, CA 1987) 92-124, pp. 107-8; cf. Hom. Il. 2.303-320; Apollod. E 3.15; Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.11-23).

Shape Description: Kylix

Sources Used: Simon & Hirmer 1976, p. 57, no. 35 (with previous bibliography)