Telos Painter - ARV 1425 9 - Dionysos and satyrs - Oxford AM 1956-372

The Telos Painter (Telos-Maler, Peintre de Telos, Telos Group, Telos-Gruppe, Groupe de Telos) is identified as a vase-painter active c. 390–360 BC in

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. Consistent stylistic references in finds point to a unique artistic figure, with

John Beazley Sir John Davidson Beazley (; 13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a British classical archaeologist and art historian, known for his classification of Attic vases by artistic style. He was professor of classical archaeology and art at the U ...

specifying his name-vase after a red-figured

bell-krater A krater or crater (, ; , ) was a large two-handled type of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in the center of the room. The ...

in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

. The vase is said to have been found – not produced – on the small

Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; , ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger and 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally define ...

island of

Tilos Tílos (; ) is a small Greek island and municipality located in the Aegean Sea. It is part of the Dodecanese group of islands, and lies midway between Kos and Rhodes. In 2021, the island had a population of 746 people. Along with the uninhabited ...

, lying off the Turkish coast between

Kos Kos or Cos (; ) is a Greek island, which is part of the Dodecanese island chain in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Kos is the third largest island of the Dodecanese, after Rhodes and Karpathos; it has a population of 37,089 (2021 census), making ...

and

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

. No context is provided and the vase was subsequently acquired by

Richard Payne Knight Richard Payne Knight (11 February 1751 – 23 April 1824) of Downton Castle in Herefordshire, and of 5 Soho Square,History of Parliament biography London, England, was a classical scholar, connoisseur, archaeologist and numismatist best k ...

, who bequeathed it to the British Museum in 1824. Characteristic themes of this artist's work are representations of symposia and the figure of

Dionysos In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; ) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus ( or ; ) by the Greek ...

: the central scene of the Tilos find is the seated god looking back towards

Ariadne In Greek mythology, Ariadne (; ; ) was a Cretan princess, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. There are variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helping Theseus escape from the Minotaur and being abandoned by him on the island of N ...

with various

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr (, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( ), and sileni (plural), is a male List of nature deities, nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated erection. ...

s in attendance. The quality of Knight's intriguing bequest, although its context is unknown, indicates the status of Tilos in Classical times and lends the small island a certain notoriety. Further examples of the work of the Telos Painter are in museum collections around the world, inter alia:

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

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Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. Such vessels are sought after by private collectors and appear not infrequently at auction sales. John Beazley attributes over 40 finds to the Telos Painter in the 1963 edition of his seminal ''Attic Red Figure Vase Painters''.

References

{{Reflist Attica Ancient Greek artists Classical Greece