Kantharos (Wine Cup) in the Shape of a Female Head

about 480 BCE

Attributed to the London Class (Class G)
Greek; Athens

This is an example of one of the most popular types of wine cup in ancient Greece, the kantharos. This particular cup takes the form of a woman’s head, which is mirrored on the opposite side. Rising from a round foot, the woman’s neck forms a wide stem, above which the cup flares out to a wide bowl with two handles on opposite sides.

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

Culture: Ancient Greek
Title: Kantharos (Wine Cup) in the Shape of a Female 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
Medium: terracotta, white-ground and black-figure technique
Dimensions: 19 × 17.8 × 13.3 cm (7 1/2 × 7 × 5 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Museum Purchase Fund
Reference Number: 1905.349
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/40897/manifest.json

Daniel Catton Rich, “Three Plastic Vases in the Classical Collection,” Bulletin Art Institute of Chicago 24, 6 (1930), pp. 74-5.
John D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase Painters, vol. II (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 1533, no. 4.
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, fig. 9.

Art Institute of Chicago, The Human Figure in Early Greek Art, A Preview, Part One, Gallery 101A, September 1, 1988 – May 24, 1989.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.
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 - present.

Eugène Piot (1812-1890), Paris; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 27-30, 1890, 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.

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Kantharos (Wine Cup) in the Shape of a Female Head

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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.

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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.

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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.