Collection Online as of February 5, 2023

White-Ground Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Atalanta and Erotes

500–490 BC

attributed to Douris

(Greek, Attic, active c. 500–470 BC)

Greek, Attic

Ceramic

Overall: 31.8 cm (12 1/2 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1966.114

Location

102B Greek

Fun Fact

Eros, god of love, appears three times on this vase.

Description

Known as "white-ground" because of the white clay slip applied as a surface for figural decoration, vases of this type give some idea of the appearance of lost ancient large-scale wall paintings. Both remarkably well preserved and masterfully composed, the images cover the entire circumference of the vase. At the center, Atalanta, the virgin huntress renowned for both her speed and her opposition to marriage, races to the right while looking back at Eros, the winged god of love; both figures are named. This Eros, bounding forward, tries to crown her, while two additional Erotes (also named) further hem her in. Love will win.

Provenance

1966-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive. BAPD 275976 www.beazley.ox.ac.uk

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 20 archive.org

Cooney, John D. "Atalanta in Cleveland." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 8 (October 1966): 318 - 325. Mentioned & reproduced: pp. 318-325

Stechow, Wolfgang. "Cleveland's Golden Anniversary Acquisitions." Artnews 65, no. 5 (September 1966): 30-64. Mentioned & reproduced: p. 32-33

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 20 archive.org

Beazley, J. D., J. D. Beazley, and J. D. Beazley. Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters and to Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (Second Edition). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. p. 376, No. 266BIS

Boulter, C. G., Jenifer Neils, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. p. 21, plates 32-34, 35, I

Boulter, Cedric G. "The Douris Lekythos in Cleveland." American Journal of Archaeology 79, no. 3 (1975): 282-83.

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 23 archive.org

Cleveland Museum of Art, and Jenifer Neils. The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Museum in cooperation with Indiana University Press, 1982. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 14, fig. 16

Carpenter, Thomas H., J. D. Beazley, Thomas Mannack, Melanie Mendonça, and Lucilla Burn. Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV² & Paralipomena. Oxford: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1989. p. 241

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 8 archive.org

Carpenter, Thomas H. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece: A Handbook. London: Thames and Hudson, 1991. fig. 93

Reeder, Ellen D. Pandora: Women in Classical Greece. Baltimore, Md: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery in association with Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1995. p. 71, fig. 19

Buitron-Oliver, Diana. Douris: A Master-Painter of Athenian Red-Figure Vases. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1995. PL.31, NO.47

Barringer, Judith M. "Atalanta as Model: The Hunter and the Hunted." Classical Antiquity 15, no. 1 (1996) p. 73, fig. 29 www.jstor.org

Immerwahr, Henry R. A Corpus of Attic Vase Inscriptions (CAVI). [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified], 1998. p. 792, no. 3204

March, Jennifer R. Cassell Dictionary of Classical Mythology. London: Cassell, 1998. p. 153, fig. 54

May, Sally Ruth, Jane Takac, and Barbara J. Bradley. Knockouts: A Pocket Guide. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. p. 116, no. 11

Barringer, Judith M. The Hunt in Ancient Greece: Judith M. Barringer. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. . Figs. 92-93, pp. 168-169

Oakley, John Howard. Picturing Death in Classical Athens: The Evidence of the White Lekythoi. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. plate 4a

Cleveland Museum of Art, and David Franklin. The Cleveland Museum of Art. London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd, 2012. pp. 12-13

Franklin, David C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. Mentioned & reproduced: pp. 34-35

Franklin, David. Director's Choice:The Cleveland Museum of Art. London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd, 2012. Mentioned & reproduced: pp. 12-13

Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 81

Williams, Dyfri. "Beyond the Berlin Painter: Toward a Workshop View." In The Berlin Painter and His World: Athenian Vase-Painting in the Early Fifth Century B.C. J. Michael Padgett,J ed., 144-187. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, Connecticut: Distributed by Yale University Press, 2017. Reproduced: p. 171, fig. 17

Hopper, Robin. Functional Pottery: Form and Aesthetic in Pots of Purpose. 2017. p. 51

Zachari, Vasiliki, Elise Lehoux and Noémie Hosoi. La Cité des Regards: autour de François Lissarrague. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019. Reproduced: p. 210, fig. 3

Moon, Warren G. and Louise Berge. Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1979. Mentioned & reproduced: pp. 184-185, cat. 104 www.perseus.tufts.edu

Carpenter, Thomas H. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece. 2021. 87-88. Mentioned and reproduced; pp. 87-88, fig. 79.

Exhibition history

The World of Ceramics: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 30-September 5, 1982).