White-Ground Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Atalanta and Erotes (c. 500–490 BCE): Art, History and Details

White-Ground Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Atalanta and Erotes (c. 500–490 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Douris (Greek, Attic, active c. 500–470 BCE).

The work and its context

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

Known as "white-ground" because of the white clay slip applied as a surface for figural decoration, vases of this type give some idea of the appearance of lost ancient large-scale wall paintings. Both remarkably well preserved and masterfully composed, the images cover the entire circumference of the vase. At the center, Atalanta, the virgin huntress renowned for both her speed and her opposition to marriage, races to the right while looking back at Eros, the winged god of love; both figures are named. This Eros, bounding forward, tries to crown her, while two additional Erotes (also named) further hem her in. Love will win.

Object facts

• Title: White-Ground Lekythos (Oil Vessel): Atalanta and Erotes
• Date: c. 500–490 BCE
• Creator attribution: Douris (Greek, Attic, active c. 500–470 BCE)
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 31.8 cm (12 1/2 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1966.114

A detail from the museum

Eros, god of love, appears three times on this vase.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• Cooney, John D. "Atalanta in Cleveland." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 8 (October 1966): 318 - 325.

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.