The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Hydria

425–400 BCE

Greece

bronze
Overall: 41.6 x 38.4 cm (16 3/8 x 15 1/8 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1986.23
Location: 102B Greek

Did You Know?

This bronze vessel was likely used as a funerary urn.

Description

This vessel gets its name from a shape of earthenware jar that was used to carry water. This bronze hydria was probably used not to carry water but as a cinerary urn (kalpis). The figure on the handle is the mythological siren, a human-headed bird.
  • Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1986.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 2 (February 1987): 38–79. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 60, no. 9 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991. Reproduced: p. 9 archive.org
    Brody, Lisa R., Matthew Hargraves, and James Arnold Higginbotham. Figures from the Fire: J. Pierpont Morgan's Ancient Bronzes at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Wadsworth Athenaeum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT in association with Paul Holberton Publishing, London. 2023. Mentioned: p. 93
  • Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987).
  • {{cite web|title=Hydria|url=false|author=|year=425–400 BCE|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1986.23