Python (painter)

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.

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.

Its catalogue listing reads, ΠΥΘΟΝ ΕΓΡΑΦΕ); Reverse: Dionysian scene (seated Dionysus with young satyr and maenad).

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.

Python's works are all in the red-figure style and are painted on a clay with rich orange-brown colour and a high content of very small mica particles.

The edges of draped garments on his figures are almost uniformly lined with the typical Paestan dot-line pattern that evolved in the Asteas-Python workshop.

Among Python's most appealing pieces are phlyax vases with depictions of the Greek comedies, played at the time in the colonies of Magna Graecia.