Lekythos (Sphinx With Cloak Youths)

Lekythos (Sphinx with cloak youths), clay, quickly turned, hand modeled, painted (ceramic), alternately fired, clay, total: height: 13.5 cm; diameter: 7 cm; base diameter: 4.1 cm; muzzle diameter: 3.3 cm, ceramic, sphinx, man, late archaic, The Attic black-figured shoulder lekythos shows figurative painting on the body of the vessel and the shoulder. The body is decorated - directly opposite the handle - with a large seated sphinx to the right. She has opened and erected the wings in the typical achaic manner. The chest is colored in cover red. The face was originally painted white, but the color is rubbed off except for a few remains. The hair falls in long strands into the neck. A red tiara adorns the head. In front of and behind the sphinx there is a man each, who is wrapped in a long coat (Greek himation) and who has led the end over a slightly outstretched arm. The cloak is decorated with a vertical white band of dots, the edge is red. The figures stand on a strong red ground line. To the shoulder the picture is separated by a thin, hardly visible black line. The shoulder is decorated by a bird figure to the right, framed by two heart-shaped ivy leaves.. (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)