On view
Band kylix (drinking cup) depicting the battle of gods and giants (A); a Dionysian revel (B); two warriors (tondo); two warriors (under foot),
ca. 540–525 BCE
Athenian cups come in different sizes, but few are as large as this colossal black-figure example. At almost two feet wide, it was not a practical drinking vessel, and instead was perhaps commissioned as a special showpiece for a symposium (an elite ritual drinking party) or intended for deposition within a tomb. The cup apparently was valued by its owner, as drill holes at the base of the bowl and the top of the stem show that the latter had broken off and was reattached with metal clamps. Two scenes decorate the exterior of the cup: the battle of the gods against the giants, a subject taken from Greek myth, and a Dionysian revel, suitable for a cup shape designed for drinking wine. Unusually, the underside of the foot has also been decorated, and two warriors, similar to those in the tondo, are shown fighting in this tight, circular space.
More About This Object
Information
ca. 540–525 BCE
Europe, Greece, Athens
- J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase-painters, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956)., 12.22; Paralipomena, 8.
- D. von Bothmer, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford, 1957), p. 11, no. 63 ibx, 28
- J.D. Beazley, Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-figure Vase-painters and Attic Red-figure Vase-painters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971)., p. 69
- Edward H. Merrin Gallery, Classical Art—Greek, Roman, Etruscan (New York, 1977), pp. 5-6
- Thomas H. Carpenter, J. D. Beazley, Thomas Mannack, Melanie Mendonça, Lucilla Burn, et. al., Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2 & Paralipomena: 2nd ed., (Oxford: Published for the British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1989)., p. 69, no. 265.1
- The Merrin Gallery, Gods and Mortals (New York, 1999), p. 22-23, no. 10
- Athina Tsingarida, ed. Shapes and Uses of Greek Vases (7th-4th centuries B.C.). Proceedings of the Symposium held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, 27-29 April 2006 (Brussels, 2009), p. 284, pl. 8
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"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2018," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 77/78 (2017-18)
, p. 163
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