Ok, I’ll admit it…I have a tendency to poopoo South Italian vase painting, dismissing it as the sloppy, derivative cousin of Attic. But when it’s good it’s really good and this is an absolute treasure – the fragment of a large skyphos attributed to the Palermo Painter.
Zeus is at his most regal here, seated on a very fancy throne (note the snarling lion crouched beneath his armrest and the gorgon glowering outwards from its terminal). An attitudinal Eros wings in to crown him (teenage angst and ennui writ large on his little face) and the dainty hand of a goddess bedecked with snaky bracelet gestures expressively before him, finely pleated sleeve just peeking out.
Zeus himself is a wonder, with that glorious eye in profile, aquiline nose, and bared manly chest. One always would like to see the vase entire, but I can’t help thinking that this fragment as a stand alone does focus the eye helpfully – it would be a shame to miss the god’s carefully stippled chest hair or the filament thin hairs that form his beard…
