Terracotta lekythos (oil flask)

Sappho Painter

ca. 500 BCE · Terracotta · Greek and Roman Art

Helios (the Sun) rises in his quadriga (4-horse chariot); above, Nyx (Night) driving away to the left and Eos (the goddess of dawn) to the right; Herakles offering sacrifice at altar. The four lekythoi grouped here are all attributed to the same painter and are said to have been found together in a tomb in Attica. Three of them are decorated with subjects that may have seemed especially suitable for funerary offerings because they show figures moving beyond the confines of the known world. This vase shows a scene that must be related to Herakles' journey to the west, outside the ring of ocean that encircled the earth. Traveling in the bowl of the sun, he reached an otherworldly place where he had to kill the monster Geryon, a creature similar to Hades, the god of the underworld. Here Herakles offers a sacrifice to Helios as the sun rises.

Artist

Sappho Painter

Date

ca. 500 BCE

Medium

Terracotta

Culture

Greek, Attic

Department

Greek and Roman Art

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1941