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Box (pyxis) and lid with Herakles stealing the Delphic tripod
Greek
Archaic Period
about 550 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Greece, Attica, Athens
Medium/Technique
Ceramic, Black Figure
Dimensions
Height: 9.9 cm (3 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Horace L. Mayer
Accession Number61.1256a-b
CollectionsAncient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsVessels
DescriptionConcave pyxis without feet. Top and bottom of wall, band of dots. Wide frieze showing Herakles, at right, seizing Delphic tripod from Apollo, at left. Behind Herakles, Zeus, Hermes, and man holding wreaths, all standing. Behind Apollo, Poseidon, Nereus (?), Dionysos, and female goddess.
On lid, two sirens, lion, goat; ivy leaves at edge, black and purple; black and purple dots on knob.
Condition: Pyxis cracked, but not broken.
On lid, two sirens, lion, goat; ivy leaves at edge, black and purple; black and purple dots on knob.
Condition: Pyxis cracked, but not broken.
ProvenanceBy date unknown: in the Sperling Collection (whose vases were all said to come from the collection of Baron Van der Elst who was in the Belgian Embassy in Rome and prior to that in Athens) (published by H. Payne, Necrocorinthia, 1931, p. 292 as: formerly in a dealer's shop in Athens); 1956: published by J. D. Beazley in Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters, p. 616, as New York market; February 1959: purchased from Sperling by Horace L. Mayer (loaned by Horace L. Mayer to MFA as 10.59); gift of Horace L. Mayer to MFA, December 1961; accessioned by MFA January 10, 1962