Il pittore di Micali: nota iconografica sulla raffigurazione di due teste isolate

On two vases of the Micali Painter, an oinochoe in St. Petersburg and an amphora in Budapest, are depicted two severed male heads and animals, running or in motion. A connection can be traced to the Pan's head coin types of Messana, and, within the Etruscan ambit, to heads of vaticinating Orpheus.
These figures probably represent the moment of the passage of the deceased into the underworld, perhaps as an initiate into the Orphic Mysteries.