Vase Catalog Number: Louvre G 135 (inv. no. N 3301/MN 63)

Decoration:

Interior: Symposium scene. A woman (hetaira?), wearing a finely pleated Ionic chiton and fillet, stands playing the aulos (double flute) for a male figure reclining on a couch (kline). Leaning against a patterned pillow (with part of the design in added red), he wears an added purple wreath and is draped in a himation around his waist. He wears a fillet around his head, and rests his right arm languidly or drunkenly around his head, while his left dangles off the edge of the couch. The drapery fabrics are dotted and some of the man's musculature is painted in added red. A spotted animal skin flute case with added red tie hangs on the wall, and a staff rests against the wall at the left. A cup stands on a small table in the lower right. The tondo border is a continuous meander running left. The artist specialized in symposia subjects (Boardman 1985b, 134-135)

Side A: what appears to be two satyrs at the left wear the nebris; the first carries a torch whose flame is in added purple. Hephaistos, wearing a chitoniskos, carries his hammer and a kantharos while riding a horse (the reins and harness are done in added red). A satyr wearing a nebris and holding a kantharos with ivy garland decoration leads the horse. A maenad wearing a nebris and carrying two torches with added purple flames closes the scene.

Side B: Dionysos appears with two maenads and a satyr, leading Hephaistos back to Olympus. The maenads wear Ionic chitons and the nebris; the left one also wears a sakkos and plays the krotala in one hand while carrying a thyrsos in the other. The right maenad plays a pair of krotala. Dionysos wears an Ionic chiton and an added purple wreath; he holds grape vines up in his left hand and a kantharos cup down in his right. The satyr at the right, wearing a nebris, plays the aulos; its case hangs from the satyr's arm.

The cup painter was influenced by both Onesimos and the Antiphon Painter, probably in the workshop of Euphronios (ARV2, 352).

Inscriptions: On the interior, LUSIS KALOS, Lysis is beautiful, written on the lip of a cup below the couch and possibly also on the table; another kalos inscription appears in the background behind the woman and between the figures O PAIS KALOS, the boy is beautiful.

Shape Description: Type B cup

Sources Used: Boardman 1985b, 134-135; Pottier 1922, 172

(Suzanne Heim)