Python (painter)

}} Python (ca. 360-320 BCE) was a Greek vase painter in the city of Poseidonia (modern Paestum) in Campania, Southern Italy, one of the major cities of Magna Graecia in the fourth Century BC. Together with his close collaborator and likely master Asteas, Python is one of only two vase painters from Southern Italy whose names have survived on extant works. It has even been suggested that the joint workshop of Asteas and Python in Paestum was a family business. (He is not to be confused with the attic vase painter of the early fifth century BC of the same name.)

There are two extant works signed by the Paestan Python:

A bell krater showing Alcmene on the pyre, about to be burned by Amphitryon, being rescued by Zeus, who provided a rainfall that extinguished the flames. Python’s signature is in the rim of the obverse face, (with the verb in the contracted form: ΠΥΘΟΝ ΕΓΡΑΦΕ). Reverse: Youthful Dionysus with two dancing maenads and three satyrs watching from a higher level. Its catalogue listing reads, Bell crater, British Museum B.M. number 1890,0210.1, from St. Agata dei Goti. RVP no 2/239 plate 88.

A neck amphora decorated with the birth of Helen from Leda’s egg that bears Python’s signature in the altar base. Its catalogue listing reads, ΠΥΘΟΝ ΕΓΡΑΦΕ); Reverse: Dionysian scene (seated Dionysus with young satyr and maenad). Neck amphora, Paestum 21370, from Paestum. RVP no 2/240 plate 89.

Stylistic similarities with the signed works allow the association of Python and his workshop with a large number of smaller vessels and a sizeable number of bell kraters,amphorae, lebetes gamikoi see lebes,lekythoi, and a few calyx-kraters that have been discovered. One of these, an unsigned bell krater thought to be by Python has been seized in Manhattan by police who suspect that it was looted from a grave site in Southern Italy. It had been displayed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its Greco-Roman galleries for many years. Return to Italy is likely.

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