Neck Amphora with Herakles and Apollo Fighting Over the Delphic Tripod

Description This amphora pairs a scene of Dionysus with one of Herakles' exploits: the struggle between Herakles and Apollo for the Delphic tripod. According to myth, Herakles traveled to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi to consult the oracle, but, when no answer was forthcoming, the hero seized Apollo's tripod, prompting a fight between the two. Herakles, draped in his lion-skin and carrying a club, menaces a youthful Apollo, while Herakles' protector, Athena, and Apollo's twin sister, Artemis, remain on the sidelines. On the back, Dionysus encounters the lame Hephaestus, god of fire and metalworking, riding on a donkey as a maenad looks on.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
10/04/2000	Treatment	technical study; cleaned; loss compensation

Exhibitions

• Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville; San Diego Museum Of Art, San Diego; Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA), New York. 2009-2011.

Provenance Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 cat. no. 194]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902