Yale 1913.143
RED-FIGURE OINOCHOE (OLPE)Lent by the Yale University Art Gallery; gift of Rebecca Darlington Stoddard (1913.143)
Height: 16 in. (40.6 cm.)
Broken and repaired.
Poseidon and Theseus. Poseidon, wearing a black-bordered himation and holding a trident, greets Theseus, dressed for travel in chlamys and petasos and holding two spears in one hand. Below, triple rightward meanders alternating with cross-squares; on the lip, egg pattern.
Attributed to the Painter of the Yale Oinochoe, his name piece [Beazley] ca. 470 - 460 B. C. The broader arrangement of the figures and less schematic folds of the drapery are characteristic of the early free style. The subject is also treated in a new way. The story, as told by Bacchylides (Bacchyl. 17), took place during the voyage to Crete. Minos challenged Theseus to prove that Poseidon was his father by throwing his gold ring into the sea and ordering Theseus to find it. With the aid of his divine father, Theseus retrieved the ring. Earlier representations of the meeting of Theseus and Poseidon had included several of the denizens of Poseidon's underwater palace, such as Nereus and Amphitrite on a column-krater in the Fogg (Harvard 1960.339; ARV2, 274, no. 39) and Triton and the Nereids on a kylix in New York (New York 53.11.4; ARV2, 406, no. 7). On this vase, most of the mythological details have been eliminated, and the god and hero are shown much as an ordinary father greeting or bidding farewell to his son.