Overview: Athena, upper half

Side A: Athena, Herakles and stag

Side A: Herakles and stag, upper half

Overview: amphora and stand

Side B: Athena

Side A: Athena, upper half

Collection: Toledo Museum of Art
Summary: Sides A and B: Herakles and the stag in the presence of Athena
Ware: Attic Black Figure
Painter: Attributed to the Leagros Group, Acheloos Painter
Date: ca. 510 BC
Dimensions: H. 0.500 m; Diam. (rim) 0.162 m; Diam. (body) 0.320 m; Diam. (foot) 0.76 m
Primary Citation: Para, 168.2
Shape: Pointed amphora
Beazley Number: 351252
Period: Late Archaic

Decoration Description:

Side A: Herakles and the stag in the presence of Athena. Herakles stands behind the stag on its far side and gazes downward. He seizes the stag by its antlers with his left hand, while he holds his bow with his right hand. He wears the lion skin over a short chiton, with a quiver on his back and a scabbard at his side. The lion skin is textured with pairs of short straight strokes. His knurled club leans in the field behind the stag. The neck of the stag is largely restored. Athena strides into the scene from the right with raised right hand. She holds a spear in her left hand. Her shield, its device two balls, is shown in three-quarter view and leans next to her. She wears a high-crested Attic helmet with neck-guards, a fillet and peplos; her aegis is adorned with scales. The tree in the background is in the center of the scene. For the letters in the field cf. CVA, USA 17, Toledo 1, p. 9, fig. 3. Added red: The beard and belt of Herakles, three short strokes on the lion's ruff, and a dot on each toe of the lower paw; Athena's fillet, the border of the crest, her belt, dots on her peplos, and the border of her shield; a dot on the stag's neck and two groups of dots, in two rows each, on its back. Added white: The chape of Herakles' scabbard, the flesh of Athena and her shield device. Side B: Herakles and the stag in the presence of Athena, as on Side A, but with some dissimilarities worth noting. The chief difference between the two sides is the location of the tree: on Side A, in the center of the composition (as mentioned above), on Side B, on the left side. Herakles seizes the stag with both hands and stands on the near side of the stag, next to its flank. He looks straight ahead. His club leans against the tree to the left. Herakles wears the lion skin textured with short strokes, short chiton, scabbard by his side and quiver at his back as on Side A, but here he has a double baldric, a sword visible in his scabbard, and his bow is shown on his back with his quiver. Athena appears as on Side A, but here her aegis is adorned with simple curved strokes. As on Side A, her shield device is two balls. A band of incised, transverse lines curves down across the neck of the stag, forming a ruff. For the letters in the field cf. CVA, USA 17, Toledo I, p. 9, fig. 4. Added red: On Herakles, his beard and belt, the top and bottom of his quiver, dots on both paws of the lion skin and dot clusters on the skirt of his chiton. On Athena, her fillet, two curves and a dot cluster on her aegis below each shoulder, her belt, large dots and clusters of small dots on her peplos and the border of her shield. On the stag, a red border along the incised ruff, a contour-stripe from the nose extending under the jaw and along the throat to the chest, and groups of dots on its back as on Side A. Added white: Herakles' baldric, the hilt of his sword, the flesh of Athena and her shield device.

The interior of the torus mouth and of the neck is fully glazed. There is a lotus-palmette chain on the neck, and an added fillet at its base. Each picture is framed by a tongue-pattern on its upper border, a plain line for lateral borders and a chain of upright buds with dots in the interstices below. There is a palmette at the base of each handle. The palmettes are not identical; one has seven, the other nine palmettes. Two bands in added red appear below both panels.

Attributed to the Acheloos Painter by Beazley (Münzen, no. 102, pp. 34-35 and Para., 168, no. 2 bis). Except for Paralipomena, the publications cited in the bibliography below refer to the animal on the Toledo amphora as the Ceryneian Hind, when, in fact, it is a stag. Brommer, in Herakles (Münster/Köln 1953) 24, mentions the possible existence of a variant version of this labor not mentioned in ancient literature, where Herakles' struggle was with a stag, not a hind. One of the notable examples of Herakles and the stag appears on a metope from the Athenian Treasury at Delphi (de la Coste-Messeliere 1957, IV, iv 119; also 119 n. 3 and 120, n. 2 for some useful remarks on the iconographical problems involved in the representation of this myth).

The Acheloos Painter is among the most distinguished and often cited members of the Leagros Group, the last and most significant group of painters of large black-figure vases between about 520 and 500 B.C. The group takes its name from a kalos-name appearing on five hydriai among the 400 or so vases assigned to the group. The painters are staunch traditionalists, for despite the bold new development of the red-figure technique, they chose to persist in that of the black-figure with renewed vigor and competency. Their figure scenes are filled with controlled energy and action, and they do not overindulge in finicky detail at the expense of clarity.

The Toledo amphora typifies these characteristics. Herakles seizes the antlers of the stag, a scene that would seem to warrant rendering dynamic action in order to depict dramatically the opposing forces of man and beast. Yet there is little evidence of a struggle; Herakles' feet remain firmly planted on the ground — only his right heel is raised slightly — and the stag appears almost benign rather than engaged in a struggle. Here the indications of force are most subtle, and must be seen in the tautness of the drawing, the slight forward tilt of Herakles' torso and the backward slant of the stag's neck in response to Herakles' pull on its antlers. The force of the figures lies in their large scale which generously fills the panel scene. Athena's helmet-crest even breaks the tongue-pattern border at the top. The tree on Side A is a carefully contrived device; its branches almost explode from the center of the scene, enlivening the background with bursting energy, and unifying the figures and the space aroun

Inscriptions: Letters in the background field, sides A and B.

Essay:

Moon No. 73

Collection History: Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey.

Sources Used: Moon 1979, no. 73, pp. 128-129

Other Bibliography: Münzen, 34-35, no. 102 (1); Arts (Paris, Dec. 31, 1958) no. 703; AQ 22 (1959) 384 and 385; GBA Supp., La Chronique des Arts, no. 1092 (Jan. 1960) 29; Washington 1962, 90; Vermeule 1967, 422, fig. 7 and p. 424; Riefstahl 1968, 37; Para., 168, no. 2 bis; K. T. Luckner, "Greek Vases: Shapes and Uses," Toledo Museum News 15 (1972) 64, 65 and cover; Brommer 1973, 76, no. 12; Boardman 1974, III and fig. 209; J.-M. Moret L'llioupersis dans la céramique italiote. Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana 14 (Rome 1975) 198, n. 3; CVA, USA 17, Toledo 1, pp. 8-9, figs. 3 and 4, pls. 14 and 15, 1 and 2; A. Johnston, "Hunting Scenes on Greek Vases," Connoisseur 196 (Nov. 1977) 161, 165