Death of the Trojan King Priam
11 Tall - Item #V120

The front side of this vase depicts a famous scene from the Trojan War.  According to Virgil’s Aenead, King Priam was determined to fight even as the Greeks were roaming the city of Troy. His wife, Queen Hecuba, urged him to take refuge with his daughters and herself in the temple of Zeus.

On the right side of the scene, there are two women standing, presumably Queen Hecuba and her daughter, Cassandra. They were both captured by the Greeks and taken to Greece as slaves. On the left side of the scene, King Menelaus of Sparta is recovering his wife, Helen. The abduction of Helen by Paris (Priam’s son), was the reason for the Trojan war.

The reverse side of this magnificent vase shows the tenth of the twelve labors of Hercules. This labor involved Geryon, a monster with three torsos and six arms.  Hercules was to steal his cattle at the orders of the King Eurestheus of Mycenae. Hercules is shown on the left of the vase wearing his trademark lion skin/head cloak. In front of him lies Eurition, the local guard of the cattle. The monster Geryon is shown on the right side of the vase fighting Hercules with spears and shields in each of his arms. After he succeeded killing the monster, Hercules set up two pillars to mark the limit of safe travel of the known world at that time. Since then the area was known as the Pillars of Hercules, or the Straits of Gibraltar today.

This vase has the signature of one of the most famous painters of the ancient times, the well known Exekias. It dates back to the 6^th century B.C. and can be found in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

Although the black figure style of vase painting originated in Corinth, it was the rise to power of the city-state of Athens and its subsequent export of pottery throughout the Mediterranean that brought the Athenian black figure vase painting style to the forefront in the 5th Century.

The vases were first completed in the well-known yellow-orange color by mixing red ochre with the clay.  The figures and scene were then painted on the vase in black in a silhouette format.  The artist could then engrave or incise lines of clothing, faces, and other details on the black figures, allowing the ochre color to show through.  Often times another color such as white or red, or sometimes purple, was added to a few objects on the vase.