The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of May 13, 2024
Red-Figure Squat Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Birth of Erichthonios
c. 420–410 BCE
attributed to Meidias Painter
(Greek, Attic, active c. 420–400 BCE)
Diameter: 18.6 cm (7 5/16 in.); Diameter of mouth: 8.7 cm (3 7/16 in.); Overall: 30.3 cm (11 15/16 in.); Diameter of foot: 14.5 cm (5 11/16 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1982.142
Location: 102B Greek
Did You Know?
A lead rivet sits at the junction of handle and neck, probably an ancient repair.Description
The central group on this vase shows the seated earth goddess Ge (also known as Gaia) handing her baby, Erichthonios, to Athena. Conceived from the seed of Hephaistos, Erichthonios would go on to become a king of Athens, and the story of his birth became popular in Athenian art of the fifth century BC. Other representations include Hephaistos as well as Kekrops, the mythical first king of Athens, sometimes together with Zeus and other deities. But this one includes only female onlookers—likely the three daughters of Kekrops watching from above, with Aphrodite and several abstract personifications such as Peitho (Persuasion) and Eudaimonia (Happiness) standing and seated nearby.- 1982-The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive. BAPD 10161 www.beazley.ox.ac.ukLexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae (LIMC). Zürich: Artemis, 1981. pl. 14Lee, Sherman E. "Year in Review for 1982." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 1 (1983): 3-55. p. 5, no. 1 www.jstor.orgNeils, Jenifer. "A Greek Nativity by the Meidias Painter." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 7 (1983). 274-89 25159823Burn, Lucilla. The Meidias Painter. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. p. 99 (cat. M. 20), pl. 11, 12a-b.Neumann, Günter, and Gerhard Bauchhenss. Matronen und verwandte Gottheiten: Ergebnisse eines Kolloquiums veranstaltet von der Göttinger Akademiekommission für die Altertumskunde Mittel- und Nordeuropas. Köln: Rheinland-Verlag, 1987. p. 164, pl. 23.2Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae 1. 1. Zürich: Artemis-Verl, 1988. no. 8Arafat, K. W. Classical Zeus: A Study in Art and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. o. 188, no, 2-23 and 10The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 8 archive.orgShapiro, H. A. Personifications in Greek Art: The Representation of Abstract Concepts, 600-400 B.C. Zürich: Akanthus, 1993. p. 32, no. 3Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine (February 1995). p. 9 archive.orgBoedeker, Deborah Dickmann, and Kurt A. Raaflaub. Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998. pp. 144-47, fig. 16-17International Union of Academies. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. United States of America Fasc. 35 United States of America Fasc. 35. München: Beck, 2000. pp. 35-37, pl. 72-74, fig. 5Neils, Jenifer. The Parthenon Frieze. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. p. 179, fig. 133May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. no. 12, pp. 16-17, 116Rosenzweig, Rachel. Worshipping Aphrodite: Art and Cult in Classical Athens. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. fig. 37A-CEuropean Association of South Asian Archaeologists, and Claudine Bautze-Picron. Religion and Art: New Issues in Indian Iconography and Iconology. London: British Association for South Asian Studies, 2008. p. 10, fig. 7Woodard, Roger D. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology. 2007. fig. 10Osborne, Robin. Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Politics, 430-380 BC. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. p. 139, fig. 6.5Dietrich, Nikolaus. Figur ohne Raum? Bäume und Felsen in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. . pp. 292-3, fig. 234Smith, Amy Claire. Polis and Personification in Classical Athenian Art. Leiden: Brill, 2011. fig. 8.1Meyer, Marion. Athena, Göttin von Athen: Kult und Mythos auf der Akropolis bis in klassische Zeit. Wien: Phoibos Verlag, 2017. Reproduced: p. 644, Abb. 371Childs, William A. P. Greek Art and Aesthetics in the Fourth Century B.C. Princeton, New Jersey: Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, in association with Princeton University Press, 2018. Reproduced: p. [446] plate 201Bérard, Claude. Embarquement pour l'image: une école du regard. Bâle: Publié par l’Association des Amis de l’Art Antique, 2018. Reproduced: plate 70, fig. 196
- The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983).Antikenmuseum, Basel (before 1982).
- {{cite web|title=Red-Figure Squat Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Birth of Erichthonios|url=false|author=Meidias Painter|year=c. 420–410 BCE|access-date=13 May 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1982.142