On view
Amphora (storage vessel) depicting the head of a horse (A, B),
ca. 600–580 BCE
In early sixth-century Athens, amphorae were often decorated with panels featuring a horse’s head with a harness. On each side of this vase a horse’s head is shown in profile, with its incised mane and prominent circular eye made more vibrant by the use of added red slip. These horse-head amphorae all date to before the middle of the sixth century BCE, the approximate moment when Athenian potters began to produce a specific type of amphorae for the Panathenaic festival that took place every four years in Athens. Because these Panathenaic amphorae, each filled with olive oil, functioned as prizes for ritual athletic and musical competitions, scholars have suggested that the horse-head amphorae, too, were prize vessels, awarded to the winners of equestrian contests.
Information
ca. 600–580 BCE
Europe, Greece, Athens
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1997," in "A Window into Collecting American Folk Art: The Edward Duff Balken Collection at Princeton," special issue, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 57, no. 1/2 (1998): p. 164-208., p. 187
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 265 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 317
