Lot Essay
One side of this krater depicts an Amazonomachy centered by Herakles battling an Amazon, perhaps Queen Hippolyte, with Dionysos on the other side seated between maenads and warriors. Perhaps more interesting are the three ships on the interior rim, each with a boar's head prow and a high sternpost terminating in a goose head. When the krater was full the ships would appear to be sailing on the wine dark sea. The subject was popular on black-figured dinoi and kraters (see M. True, et al., op. cit., p. 5 for a list of column-kraters and pp. 9-10 for dinoi with the motif).