Rhyton (Drinking Vessel) in the Shape of a Donkey Head

480-470 BCE

Attributed to the Painter of London E 55 (Manner of Douris)
Greek; Athens

This drinking cup could not have been set down without its contents spilling. It is fashioned after the head of a bridled donkey with a white muzzle, teeth, and ears. Like the naked satyr chasing a fleeing maenad on the vessel’s neck, the donkey belongs to the retinue of the wine god Dionysos.

Status: On View, Gallery 151
Department: Arts of the Ancient Mediterranean and Byzantium

Culture: Ancient Greek
Title: Rhyton (Drinking Vessel) in the Shape of a Donkey Head
Place: Athens (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 480 BCE–470 BCE
Medium: terracotta, red-figure
Dimensions: 20 × 9.3 cm (7 1/8 × 3 5/8 in.); Diam.: 9.3 cm (3 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Museum Purchase Fund
Reference Number: 1905.345
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/40887/manifest.json

Jean de Witte, Description des Antiquités et objets d’art qui composent le Cabinet de feu M. le Chevalier E. Durand (Paris 1836), no. 1278.
Leon Jean Joseph Dubois. Description des Antiques Faisant Partie des Collections de M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (Paris 1841), p. 38, no. 160.
Catalogue des objets d’art… qui composent les collections de feu M. le Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier (Paris 1865), p. 41, no. 171.
Collection Eugène Piot, Antiquités (Paris 1890), p. 47, no. 172.
Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1928), pp. 131-2.
Daniel Catton Rich, “A Rhyton in the Brygan Manner”, American Journal of Archaeology 34 (1930), p. 53.
Daniel Catton Rich, “A Rhyton in the Brygan Manner, in International Studio (Aug. 1931), pp. 20-21, 74, figs. 1 and 2.
David M. Robinson, Cornelia G. Harcum and J.H. Iliffe, A Catalogue of the Greek Vases in the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology (Toronto, 1930), p. 171.
Herbert Hoffman, Attic Red-Figured Rhyta (Mainz 1962) 15 and 45, no. 120, and pl. 23, nos. 3-4.
John D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, vol. II, (The Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 445, no. 259.
Max Wegner, Duris (Universität Münster thesis; 1968), p. 218.
Warren G. Moon and Louise Berge, Greek Vase-Painting in Midwestern Collections (Art Institute of Chicago, 1979), pp. 190-191, no. 107.
J. Robert Guy, The Late Manner and Early Classical Followers of Douris (Oxford DPhil thesis; 1982), pp. 27-8.
Eva C. Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pl. 289.
John G. Pedley, “Ancient Art at The Art Institute of Chicago,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, 1 (1994), pp. 41-43.
Karen Alexander, “The New Galleries of Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Minerva vol. 5, no. 3, p. 30 (May/June, 1994), fig. 5.
Diana Buitron-Oliver, Douris: A Master Painter of Athenian Red Figure Vases (Mainz 1995), p. 87, no. E 18, pl. 129.
“Galleries and Museums,” The Chicago Reader, (Sept. 15, 1995), pp. 17, 19 (ill.).
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 25.

Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
Art Institute of Chicago, Dionysos Unmasked: Ancient Sculpture and Early Prints, Gallery 150 and 154, July 31, 2015 - February 15, 2016.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 151, November 11, 2012 - July 17, 2015 and February 26, 2016 - present.

Said to be from Nola [according to Durand catalogue, 1836]. Edmé-Antoine Durand (1768-1835); sold at estate sale, Paris, April 25 - May 27, 1836. James-Alexander de Pourtalès-Gorgier (1776-1855), Paris, by 1841; sold at estate sale, Paris, February 6, 1865. Eugène Piot (1812-1890), Paris; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 27-30, 1890, lot 172, to Charles L. Hutchinson (1854-1924) and Martin A. Ryerson (1856-1932), Chicago; on loan to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1890-1905; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1905.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.