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This playful vessel depicts a prancing hare on a red platform. Hares were sometimes associated with fertility in antiquity and in Greek culture they had a particular link with the Goddess Artemis. Daughter of Zeus and Leto, she was known as Mistress of the Animals and was often depicted holding hares by their front or back paws. The historian Xenophon also records that new-born hares captured by hunters were not killed but left to the goddess. Thus, the fertile hare served as an attribute and messenger of Artemis. This lekythos, or oil container, is striking for the simplicity of the design, clearly executed rapidly but skillfully by the ancient craftsman. - (DG.058)
Antiquities
Ancient Greek
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