Red-Figure Situla (Deep Bucket): Bellerophon Slaying Chimaera (A); Dionysos, Maenads, Eros (B) (c. 350 BCE): Art, History and Details

Red-Figure Situla (Deep Bucket): Bellerophon Slaying Chimaera (A); Dionysos, Maenads, Eros (B) (c. 350 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Group of the Dublin Situlae.

The work and its context

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

The dramatic scene on this bucket-like vessel (known as a situla, more common in bronze) shows the hero Bellerophon astride his winged horse Pegasos, taking aim with a spear at the monstrous Chimaera. Combining parts of a goat and snake with the body of a lion, this fearsome fire-breathing creature lived in Lycia (now southwest Turkey), where fire still burns from natural vents in the rock. Also present on the vase are Hermes and Athena, watching Bellerophon, as well as a small Pan and two young satyrs with stones. Are they taking aim at Pegasos or the Chimaera? Dionysos, Eros, and two maenads appear on the reverse.

Object facts

• Title: Red-Figure Situla (Deep Bucket): Bellerophon Slaying Chimaera (A); Dionysos, Maenads, Eros (B)
• Date: c. 350 BCE
• Creator attribution: Group of the Dublin Situlae
• Culture: South Italian, Apulian
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: with handle: 30.3 cm (11 15/16 in.); Diameter of rim: 24.5 cm (9 5/8 in.); Diameter of foot: 13.1 cm (5 3/16 in.); without handle: 28 cm (11 in.)
• Collection: GR - South Italy
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1977.179

A detail from the museum

The mythical fire-breathing Chimaera comprises a lion with goat’s head and neck, plus a snake-headed tail.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. 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.
• Trendall, A. D., and Alexander Cambitoglou. The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

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.