#5 - Sports

Reference number - 14.130.12
ca. 530 B.C. - Attributed to the Euphiletos Painter

From the Metropolitan website

“From the second quarter of the sixth century B.C. on, victors in the contests for the Panathenaic festival in Athens were awarded a standardized vase containing one metretes (about forty-two quarts) of olive oil from sacred olive groves in Attica. The official decoration on the front was a picture of a statue of Athena, fully armed, standing between two columns. The event for which the vase was awarded was illustrated on the back.

The Euphiletos Painter was trained in the black-figure technique. It is interesting to compare the firm, deliberate incision in his works with the looser, freer line of artists like the Berlin Painter. The footrace is one of the earliest known events in the Panathenaic games.”