Fragment from Red-Figure Kylix: Nereus(?) and Nereid (c. 470–460 BCE): Art, History and Details

Fragment from Red-Figure Kylix: Nereus(?) and Nereid (c. 470–460 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pistoxenos Painter (Greek, Attic, active c. 470–460 BCE).

The work and its context

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

Broken from the rim and bowl of a drinking cup, this fragment shows a woman looking back and moving away from a bearded man. Because she holds a dolphin, she is likely a Nereid, or sea nymph. The man may be her father, Nereus, although he is usually shown with white hair and beard (appropriately, for he is often called “Old Man of the Sea”).

Object facts

• Title: Fragment from Red-Figure Kylix: Nereus(?) and Nereid
• Date: c. 470–460 BCE
• Creator attribution: Pistoxenos Painter (Greek, Attic, active c. 470–460 BCE)
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 14.5 cm (5 11/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1924.537

A detail from the museum

Nereus, a god of the sea, had 50 daughters, known as Nereids.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
• 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.