Mastoid (Drinking Cup)

Arts of the Ancient Mediterranean and Byzantium

500-480 BCE

Attributed to the Manner of the Haimon Painter
Greek; Athens

This drinking cup depicts Herakles’s fight with the Cretan Bull, represented twice in the continuous frieze around the vase; there is a long dotted vine or ivy branch above. The hero stoops low to grasp the bull by one horn, forcing it to its knees. Behind him, as if suspended in the branch, is his cloak and his sword in its scabbard. To the left of one scene crouches a figure with a cloak around one arm and a club (presumably Iolaos with Herakles’s club), while to the left of the second version of the scene is a striding Athena, arm outstretched and covered with her snake-lined aegis - she wears a helmet and carries a spear.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Ancient Mediterranean and Byzantium

Culture: Ancient Greek
Title: Mastoid (Drinking Cup)
Origin: Athens
Date: 500 BCE–480 BCE
Medium: terracotta, decorated in the black-figure technique
Dimensions: 8.5 × 10 × 10 cm (3 2/5 × 4× 4 in.)
Credit Line: Museum Purchase Fund
Reference Number: 1889.120
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/283/manifest.json

William M.R. French, Notes [on a] journey to Europe with Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Hutchinson starting from New York Sat’y Mch. 9, 1889- , (unpublished manuscript, Art Institute of Chicago Archives), p. 25 (no. 71, 73 or 74).
Art Institute of Chicago, Preliminary Catalogue of Metal Work, Graeco-Italian Vases, and Antiquities, December 9, 1889 (Chicago: Early and Halla Printing Company, 1889), p. 40, no. 330.
F. Brommer, Vasenlisten zur griechsiche Heldensage (3rd ed., Marburg 1973) 201 no. 17.
J.D. Beazley, Attic. Black-Figure Vase-Painters. (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1978), p. 559, 490.

Pio Marinangeli, Rome; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1889.

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