Detail of a Neck Amphora with a Scene from the Seven Against Thebes in the Getty Villa, June 2016

Title: Campanian Neck-Amphora

Artist/Maker: Attributed to Caivano Painter (Greek, active 340 - 330 B.C.)

Culture: Greek (South Italian)

Place: Campania, South Italy (Place created)

Date: about 340 B.C.

Medium: Terracotta

Object Number: 92.AE.86

Dimensions: 63.5 × 24.9 cm (25 × 9 13/16 in.)

Alternate Titles: Red-figured neck amphora (Display Title)
Storage Jar with Kapaneus (Display Title)

Previous Attribution: Caivano Painter (Greek, active 340 - 330 B.C.)

Object Type: Amphora

In the myth of The Seven Against Thebes, a group of heroes banded together and attacked the city to reinstate the rightful king. The front of this red-figure amphora shows an episode from the myth. Holding a burning torch, the hero Kapaneus climbs a ladder, while two defenders and the usurping ruler look down from the wall. Kapaneus was killed for boasting that he did not need the gods' help; for his hubris, Zeus, the king of the gods, struck him down with a thunderbolt, which he here hurls down from above. The punishment of Kapaneus is rarely seen in ancient art. The main scene on the other side of the vase shows maenads and satyrs, the companions of Dionysos, the god of wine. Beginning in the 600s B.C., Greeks colonized parts of southern Italy and Sicily. From about 450 B.C., these colonists began producing their own fine decorated pottery, which eclipsed the imported Athenian wares by the next century. This pottery, known as South Italian ware, first grew directly out of Athenian shapes, style, and iconography and then developed its own visual forms.


Text from: www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/15176/attributed-to-caivano-painter-campanian-neck-amphora-greek-south-italian-about-340-bc