Kylix (Drinking Cup)
540-530 BCE
- Medium
- terracotta, black-figure
- Classification
- Vessel
- Dimensions
- 13 × 28.6 cm (5 1/8 × 11 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Ancient Greece
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
- Credit line
- Promised gift of Mrs. J. William Holland
- 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
In the center of this scene, a young man dons armor for battle, affixing a shin guard to his left leg. His helmet rests on the ground, and the woman standing before him holds his shield as attendants look on. Approaching riders on rearing steeds and a running youth give the impression of urgency. Because the soldier is not bearded, which indicates youth, and is so much taller than the other figures, which often indicates special status, he may represent the Greek hero Achilles, whose mother, upon learning that her son would fight in the Trojan War, gave him a suit of armor that she had specially commissioned from Hephaistos, blacksmith to the gods.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
