Black-Figure Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Seated Men, Warriors and Horse (c. 510–500 BCE): Art, History and Details

Black-Figure Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Seated Men, Warriors and Horse (c. 510–500 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Leagros Group (Greek, Attic, active c. 520–500 BCE).

The work and its context

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

Four men decorate the body of this sturdy oil vessel, perhaps in a scene of homecoming. Unlike on later, white-ground lekythoi, the painter has used white only as an accent—now faded—on the shield and the clothing and broad-brimmed hats of some of the men. The letters scattered across the background do not spell any recognizable Greek words, perhaps suggesting an illiterate painter and/or clientele.

Object facts

• Title: Black-Figure Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Seated Men, Warriors and Horse
• Date: c. 510–500 BCE
• Creator attribution: Leagros Group (Greek, Attic, active c. 520–500 BCE)
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 31.7 cm (12 1/2 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1929.134

A detail from the museum

As usual for lekythoi painted by the Leagros Group, seven palmettes decorate the shoulder.

Collection credit

Charles W. Harkness Endowment Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• Boulter, C. G., Jenifer Neils, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971.

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.