Black-Figure Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Pan Presenting Hare to Woman (c. 330–320 BCE): Art, History and Details

Black-Figure Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Pan Presenting Hare to Woman (c. 330–320 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Asteas/Python Workshop (South Italian, Paestan, active c. 360–320 BCE).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This round-bodied oil vessel, produced in Paestum, belongs to a small group of vessels decorated with black figure in the second half of the fourth century BC, long after the technique had previously fallen out of fashion. Unlike most such vessels, which are smaller and feature just a single figure (often a woman or bird), this one shows a more complex and colorful scene. The goat-legged god Pan perches on a branched tree trunk, holding his syrinx (panpipe) and a hare. Facing him, her hands on the trunk, is a draped woman, perhaps a nymph or the moon goddess Selene.

Object facts

• Title: Black-Figure Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Pan Presenting Hare to Woman
• Date: c. 330–320 BCE
• Creator attribution: Asteas/Python Workshop (South Italian, Paestan, active c. 360–320 BCE)
• Culture: South Italian, Paestan
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Diameter: 6.1 cm (2 3/8 in.); Overall: 25.7 x 12.9 cm (10 1/8 x 5 1/16 in.); Diameter of foot: 8.1 cm (3 3/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - South Italy
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1985.1

A detail from the museum

Although his name means “all” in Greek, Pan is primarily a god of shepherds.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• Turner, Evan H. "The Year in Review for 1984." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 2 (1985)
• Trendall, A. D., and A. D. Trendall. The Red-Figured Vases of Paestum. [London]: British School at Rome, 1987.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.