Black-Figure White-Ground Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Athena between Cocks and Hieropoioi (Officials) (500–485 BCE): Art, History and Details

Black-Figure White-Ground Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Athena between Cocks and Hieropoioi (Officials) (500–485 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Athena Painter (Greek, c. 500–475 BCE).

The work and its context

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

The helmeted war goddess Athena strides forward on this oil vessel, raising her spear and a round shield emblazoned with a red snake. Flanked by two cocks, her pose recalls that on Panathenaic prize vases, the large black-figure amphorae awarded to athletic and equestrian victors in the Panathenaic Games. Beside the roosters stand two bearded, wreathed men, each holding a forked stick. Inscriptions identify the men as hieropoioi (doers of sacred things), officials charged with administration of sacred ceremonies and contests.

Object facts

• Title: Black-Figure White-Ground Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Athena between Cocks and Hieropoioi (Officials)
• Date: 500–485 BCE
• Creator attribution: Athena Painter (Greek, c. 500–475 BCE)
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: Ceramic
• Dimensions: Diameter: 10.5 cm (4 1/8 in.); height: 29.7 cm (11 11/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 2022.42

A detail from the museum

Athena’s skin, typically painted white on black-figure vases, here remains black atop the white ground.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive Pottery Database
• Haspels, Caroline Henriette Emilie. Attic Black Figured Lekythoi. Paris, 1936.
• Buffalo Academy of Fine Arts. Blue Book of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, in Which Is Incorporated the Albright Art Gallery and the Albright Art School: 1931-1942. Buffalo: Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, 1943.

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.