| Collection: | Toledo Museum of Art |
| Summary: | Herakles and Alkyoneus |
| Ware: | Attic Black Figure |
| Painter: | Attributed to the Leagros Group |
| Date: | ca. 510 BC |
| Dimensions: | H. 0.26 m., d. rim 0.065 m., d. shoulder 0.12 m., d. foot 0.08 m. |
| Shape: | Lekythos |
| Period: | Late Archaic |
Decoration Description:
Herakles and Alkyoneus. On the left, Herakles moves toward the reclining Alkyoneus. Wearing his lionskin and a chitoniskos, as well as a scabbard slung from his left shoulder and a quiver from his right, Herakles carries his sword in his right hand and his bow in his left. A naked, winged youth personifying Sleep hovers over the giant, who is naked, bearded and mustached. With his back propped against a rock, his face is turned frontally and his eyes are closed. Leaning on his left elbow, he crosses his right arm in front of his stomach and rests his hand and curved fingers on the ground. His right leg is flexed, and his left is extended. Leafed branches with white blossoms rise from behind Alkyoneus.
Forming the boundary of the main panel are two lines with a net pattern between them. On the shoulder, six palmettes alternating up and down in direction fill the space, with ivy leaves interspersed between. Above the palmettes at the base of the neck is a row of tongues. A narrow ridge runs around the lower edge of the torus foot, and a base fillet separates foot from body.
Added red is found on both interior and exterior edges of the mouth, a neck band above the tongues, Herakles's beard, dots on his chiton and lionskin, the edge of Alkyoneus's beard, his mustache and bangs, Sleep's fillet, and a band at the bottom of the main panel. Added white includes the teeth and claws of the lionskin, Herakles's baldrics, his sword hilt, his scabbard butt, the ends of the arrows in the quiver, the area below Alkyoneus and the tree blossoms.
Discussion of this myth and its representations in vase painting can be found in
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