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small white ground kylix depicting Apollo of Delphi
£55.00
The original of this iconic piece is displayed in the 'Charioteer Room' at the archaeological museum at Delphi. It was found in a grave, dates to ca 480BC,, and has been attributed to the Berlin Painter. Apollo, the versatile god of prophecy and oracles, sun and light, music and poetry, holds his tortoiseshell lyre in his left hand, and pours a libation with his right. He wears his signature wreath of laurel. The mortal princess Coronis, pregnant with Apollo's child, fell in love with a young man. Apollo sent his twin sister Artemis to kill Coronis. The unborn child was taken from her, and given to Chiron the centaur to rear. This child was Asklepios, who became the god of medicine and healing. The crow has been black ever since.
dimensions: Diameter of bowl: 12x12cm
quantity
about Apollo
Apollo was a most multi-faceted and versatile god. His spheres of influence included the sun and light, culture and civilisation, medicine, disease and healing, prophecy and oracles, music, dance, poetry, and archery. He was worshipped as a nurturer of youth - kourotrophos - and as a guardian of children into adulthood. At their coming of age, boys would cut their hair and dedicate it to him.
He was the son of Zeus and the mortal Leto, who gave birth to him and his twin sister Artemis on the Cycladic island of Delos, which Zeus arranged should emerge from the Aegean Sea for the occasion. Two of his four children were Asklepios (with the nymph Coronis) and Orpheus (with the Muse Kalliope), Hyacinthus and Cyparissus were his male lovers, and he also fell in love with the Trojan princess, Cassandra. He supported the Trojans in the Trojan War, and guided Paris' fatal arrow that struck Achilles in the heel.
His many epithets include Phoebus, meaning bright or shining, and Pythios - Pythian. Apollo had killed the deadly Python that was ravaging the area of Delphi, then established his oracular sanctuary there. His priestess the Pythia would sit in the Delphic tripod in the innermost part of the temple, be filled with the spirit - pneuma - of the god, then deliver his oracle. When Apollo's half-brother Herakles once tried to steal the tripod, Zeus intervened, and Herakles was duly punished.
Apollo's most common attributes are the lyre and the laurel wreath, reminding us of his pursuit of the nymph Daphne and her subsequent metamorphosis into a laurel tree.
about this pottery collection
This pottery collection is produced in Greece in the workshop of the Lioulias family, with whom It's All Greek is proud to have been working since 2004.