Attic black-figure Amphora by the Ptoion Painter
Photogallery
Attic black-figure Amphora by the Ptoion Painter
The banquet scene depicted on the secondary face of this ovoid amphora is a theme particularly dear to this painter who, in this case, offers Hellenic-type version of what was later painted in Etruscan tombs, often by the same Greek immigrant artists. Two pairs of guests, one younger and the other bearded, attend a banquet reclining on klinai, enveloped in decorated capes, which leave the torso uncovered. On the front of each kline, equipped with a suppedaneum, there is a table laden with food and containers. In the background there are two stringed instruments and two tæniæ, or headbands.
As a background to the world of man, there is the myth and world of the gods with the judgement of Paris on the main face, which depicts three richly clad if indistinct goddesses, preceded by Hermes and awaited by a bearded Paris (a similar figure concludes the procession).
Below there is a frieze of animals, with panthers and grazing goats.