Cleveland Museum of Art

Italo-Geometric Bird Askos (Oil Vessel): Hunter (Herakles?) and Stag

Bisenzio ClassLinkedCulture matchlcp-e781cdbd7288

Date: c. 700 BCE
Medium: ceramic
Culture: Etruscan, likely made at Vulci
Department: Greek and Roman Art
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 156896

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

This bird-shaped askos (oil vessel), with a tall filling spout and a pierced beak for pouring, perhaps held perfumed oil for a funerary function. Although the shape likely stems from Italian tradition, the abundantly painted geometric decoration, covering nearly every available surface, derives originally from Greece. Thus scholars have suggested that an immigrant Greek potter working in Etruria may have made the vessel. The sole narrative scene shows a man with a spear leading an antlered animal. If not an anonymous hunter, this could be the earliest known representation of the hero Herakles performing his third labor: capturing the golden-antlered Keryneian hind, or female deer. This askos may feature the earliest known representation of Herakles's third labor, the Keryneian hind.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Provenance: Said to have been found at Vulci, Italy | by 1977–1992: Norbert Schimmel (1905–1990), New York, NY | 1992–1993: Atelier Amphora (Mario Bruno, d. 1993), Lugano, Switzerland | 1993: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH