Ceramic vessels decorated with repetitive linear designs were so popular during the 8th and 7th centuries BC that the term Geometric applies to both the style and the time period (800–600 BC). The body of this container is decorated with popular ornamentations, among them Greek key pattern, or meanders, as well as checkerboard patterns, dotted and crosshatched lozenges, and chevrons.
The handle of this vase takes the form of horses standing side by side, suggesting a team for a four-horse chariot. Ownership of horses was an important indicator of financial status, since only the wealthy could afford to possess and train them.
Date
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Ars Antiqua AG, Lucerne, Auktion 3 am 29, sale cat. (Ars Antiqua AG, Lucerne, April 1961), p. 34 no. 80, pl. 30/31.
Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report: 1976-76 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1976), p. 33 (ill.).
B. Bohen, Kerameikos Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen XII: Die Geometrischen Pyxiden (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988), p. 62 IX no. 4.
Louise Berge, “Recent Acquisitions in the Classical Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Daidalikow: Studies in Memory of Raymond V. Schoder, S.J. (Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 1988), p. 46.
John Griffiths Pedley, “Greek Art” in Museum Studies: Ancient Art at The Art Institute of Chicago 20, no. 1 (1994), p. 30 (ill.), no. 19.
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. 33.
Art Institute Junior Museum, This is not a Greek Vase Show, November 1, 1984 - January 29, 1986.
Art Institute of Chicago, Grave Goods from Ancient Cultures, Gallery 141, November 9, 1991-May 17, 1992.
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 - January 24, 2019.
With Ars Antiqua, Lucerne, Switzerland, April 29, 1961, lot 80. Bruce McAlpine, London, by 1976 [receipt in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976.
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