Collection Online as of October 20, 2020

Red-Figure Ram-Head Rhyton (Drinking Vessel): Symposiasts; Satyr and Maenad

c. 480-470 BC

attributed to Brygos Painter

(Greek, Attic, active c. 490-470 BC)

Greek, Attic

Ceramic

Overall: 19 x 12.8 cm (7 1/2 x 5 1/16 in.); Diameter of rim: 11.4 cm (4 1/2 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1988.8

Location

102B Greek

Fun Fact

A rhyton is a roughly conical bowl, usually in the shape of an animal head, from which fluids were intended to be drunk or to be poured.

Description

On the bowl three men recline at a drinking party (or symposium): a youth wearing a kidaris (a flapped Scythian hat) plays double pipes as a lyre hangs on the wall behind him; a bearded man holds a kylix in his extended right hand; and another bearded man holds a large skyphos to his chest. Before the heads of each symposiast is an identical nonsense inscription. Flanking the handle in the zone to the left, a satyr plays double pipes; in the zone to the right a maenad dances.

Provenance

Ariel Herrmann, New York, NY

?-1988

(Acanthus Gallery, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

1988-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive. BAPD 44593 www.beazley.ox.ac.uk

Guy, Robert. "A Ram's Head Rhyton Signed by Charinos," Arts in Virginia 21.2 (1981): 2-15. See figs. 9-11, pp. 5-6, 13 (n. 14).

Slater, William J. Dining in a Classical Context. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991. p. 79, no. 6, fig. 9-10

J. Paul Getty Museum. Greek vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, Calif: The Museum, 1983. p. 79, n. 33 and 82, n. 40

Boulter, C. G., and Kurt T. Luckner. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Toledo: Toledo Museum of Art, 1984. pp. 20, 5

"The Year in Review for 1988." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 76, no. 2 (1989): 30-75. pp. 49, 68 www.jstor.org

Miller, Margaret Christina. "Adoption and Adaptation of Achaemenid Metalware Forms in Attic Black-Gloss Ware of the Fifth Century," Archaeologische Mitteilungen aus Iran. Band 26 (1993): 109-146. See Tafel 25,2, with pp. 122-124.

Miller, Margaret Christina. Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century B.C.: A Study in Cultural Receptivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 141-142, fig. 48.

Neils, Jenifer, and Gisela Walberg. Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, OH]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. pp. 23-24, PL.(1805) 59.1-7

Neer, Richard T. Style and Politics in Athenian Vase-Painting: The Craft of Democracy, Ca. 530-460 B.C.E. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 21, fig. 3.

Topper, Kathryn. The Imagery of the Athenian Symposium. 2012. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 87, fig. 31.

Sumption, Merle R., and Jack Lyle Landes. Planning Functional School Buildings. New York: Harper, 1957. p. 87, fig. 31

Ramón Corzo Sánchez. "The golden ram at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum", Buletina = Boletín = Bulletin. Bilbao : Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa = Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao = Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, no. 7, 2013, pp. 15-47. CMA vase in fig. 13.

Exhibition history

The Year in Review for 1988. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 1-May 14, 1989).