Image Details

Photo by Alinari/Art Resource, NY

Like his fellow Apulian artists, the Darius Painter did not sign his works. His name derives from two vases, both in the Archaeological Museum in Naples, depicting two different Persian kings named Darius. One vase, a large volute krater (shown here), unearthed in a tomb at Canosa, depicts a group of Persians presenting the news of the suppression of a Greek revolt to their king, Darius (see detail), in 498 B.C. The other Naples vase (not pictured) shows Alexander the Great pursuing the chariot of a later Persian king, also named Darius. Alexander fought the Persians from 334 B.C. to 330 B.C.—making the Naples vase contemporaneous with the events it depicts.