On view
Kylix (drinking cup) depicting Herakles wrestling Achelöos (A); a scene of distress, possibly with King Oeneus and Deianeira (B),
ca. 470 BCE
The kylix was the quintessential type of cup used at the symposium. Besides consuming wine, participants at these ritual drinking parties told stories, played music, and sang poetry. The mythical scenes on vessels like this one could have given inspiration for these activities and offered the symposiasts the chance to adopt the personae of the figures depicted. Here, the hero Herakles wrestles the river god Achelöos, shown in the form of a bull with a bearded man’s face. The scene on the other side may represent Deianeira, Herakles’s wife, rushing toward her father, King Oeneus. On the interior a man and a woman pour a libation of wine, alluding both to the offerings that were performed at the beginning of the symposium and the wine that this cup once held.
Information
ca. 470 BCE
Europe, Greece, Athens
Walter Bareiss (1919-2007), Munich, Germany; purchased by Dr. Giorgio Mannini, Wolfsburg, Germany; purchased by Peter Conradty, Nuremburg, Germany in 1987; purchased from the above via Galerie Serodine, Ascona, Switzerland by the Princeton University Art Museum, April 2010.
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