Tritoness or Scylla Relief Applique (late 200s BCE): Art, History and Details

Tritoness or Scylla Relief Applique (late 200s BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The seaweed garment, finned gills, and webbed ears give this female bust appliqué all the hallmarks of an ocean dweller. She may be a Tritoness, a minor goddess of the sea and the female counterpart to the more common Triton. However, her intense gaze and raised arm clutching perhaps the hilt of a sword suggest she may be Scylla, a sea monster that first appears in Homer’s Odyssey. Without the Tritoness’s fishtail or Scylla’s lower body made of dogs’ heads, it is difficult to differentiate. Certain features are highlighted with a copper inlay such as the lips, eyes, and gills.

Object facts

• Title: Tritoness or Scylla Relief Applique
• Date: late 200s BCE
• Culture: Greece, Hellenistic period
• Type: Metalwork
• Technique: bronze with copper inlays
• Dimensions: Overall: 22.4 x 24.5 x 7.8 cm (8 13/16 x 9 5/8 x 3 1/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1985.184

A detail from the museum

Mythological sea creatures became popular metal vessel decorations around the 2nd-century BCE.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.
• Walter-Karydi, Elena. "Skylla. Bilder und Aspekte des Mischwesens." Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, 112: no. 6, 1997. pp 179-181.
• Walter-Karydi, Elena. “Dangerous is Beautiful: The Elemental Quality of a Hellenistic Scylla,” in Palagia and Coulson, eds. Regional Schools in Hellenistic Sculpture: Proceedings of an International Conference held at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, March 15-17, 1996. 1998.

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.