Kylix (Drinking Cup)
Ancient Greek (Greek; Athens)
530-520 BCE
- Medium
- terracotta, black-figure
- Classification
- Vessel
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
- Credit line
- Anonymous loan
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This vase honors Dionysos as the god of both wine and the theater. When the drinker raised the cup to his mouth, it doubled almost as a theatrical mask, with the handles serving as ears and the circular hollow representing a mouth. The round, wide eyes staring back at the viewer symbolize the intoxicating effects of the drink, the wine god’s gaze, or both. Drinking vessels decorated in this manner are called eye cups. Sometimes a nose appeared between the eyes, but the painter of this cup drew boxers, perhaps to celebrate the winner of a local match.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
