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Proceed To Olympus: The Iconography Of The Return Of Hephaestus, Catherine Hensly

Hollins Student Conference (2012-2016)

The mythological story of Hephaestus’ return to Mount Olympus exists in fragmentary literary accounts which are augmented by a pictorial record. Working backward from Classical images of Hephaestus’ return, the François Vase manifests as the primary source of the depiction’s overall composition. Examination of sixty-three vases featuring the return as published in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae reveals certain themes cycling through over the course of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. By creating a timeline of these images, deductive reasoning establishes the François Vase as the iconographic prototype. Later images expand or abbreviate its motifs as they simultaneously reflect …