An Attic Black-figured Neck Amphora, attributed to the Medea Group, circa 520 B.C.

painted in front with Hephaistos returning to Olympus riding an ithyphallic mule or donkey, an oinochoe suspended on the animal's phallus, followed by a satyr carrying a large volute krater, and preceded by Dionysos, and on the reverse with a fight between two warriors flanked by a Scythian archer on the left and an Amazon on the right, the details in added red and white, a graffito spelling kappa epsilon under the foot.

German private collection
Helena and Jacques Schulman, Amsterdam
Lincoln Higgie, Chicago
acquired from the above by the present owner in 1976

The Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1978-2006/8
"Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections," The Art Institute of Chicago, December 22nd, 1979 to February 24th, 1980

Warren G. Moon and Louise Berge, eds., Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections, exhibition catalogue, Chicago, 1979, no. 56, pp. 96-97
Warren G. Moon, ed., Ancient Greek Art and Iconography, Madison, 1983, p. 162, fig. 11.3
Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens, New York, 1985, p. 81
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, vol. IV, Munich, 1988, s.v. Hephaistos, fig. 156b
Revue
Dietrich von Bothmer, in Glories of the Past. Ancient Art from the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection, D. v. Bothmer, ed., New York, 1990, p. 140
Guy Michael Hedreen, Silens in Attic Black-figure Vase-Painting: Myth and Performance, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1992, p. 184, note 45
Patricia C. Powell, ed., Ancient Etruscan and Greek Vases in the Elvehjem Museum of Art, Madison, Wisc., p. 83, illus.
Stephen Fineberg, "Hephaestus on Foot in the Cerameicus," Transactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 139, 2009, p. 300, fig. 4
Beazley Archive Pottery Database, no. 7878, illus.

Intact, handles appear to be mostly painted over, superficial chip on top of rim, another small chip off black glaze on side of rim, minor losses to added white mostly on figures of Dionysos, on arm and neck of Amazon, and on bull's head emblazoned on her shield, small area of light pitting and minor losses to glaze on lower section of palmette to right of Dionysos and on upper body of god himself, especially along edges of incised decoration (this area was also slightly dented or pushed in prior to firing).
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