Amphora (Storage Jar)

Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium

530-520 BCE

Close to the style of the Antimenes Painter
Greek; Athens

This large vessel was used for storing and mixing wine, and was likely used as part of the Greek symposium. Much like modern academic symposiums, in which people discuss a topic of common interest, debunking old theories and putting forth new hypotheses; the men of ancient Athens regularly got together in private homes to exchange ideas. Afterward the participants might continue the conversation, discussing their impressions in greater detail or simply socializing over a drink. As the evening progressed, participants engaged in other pleasures, including games, performances, and sex. Wine played a major role in fueling these evenings, and as such the myriad vessels used in the symposium often paid homage to drink. Here, the face or mask of a satyr, one of the followers of the wine god Dionysos, is depicted with grapevines seemingly growing from his head.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium

Culture: Ancient Greek
Title: Amphora (Storage Jar)
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.: 530 BCE–520 BCE
Medium: terracotta, black-figure on white-ground
Dimensions: 39.4 × 27.7 cm (15 1/8 × 10 7/8 in.); Diam.: 27.7 cm (10 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Costa A. Pandaleon Endowment
Reference Number: 1980.75
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/59815/manifest.json

Joan Mertens, Attic White-Ground: Its Development on Shapes Other Than Lekythoi (PhD dissertation, New York, 1977) iv, Addenda and Corrigenda, to p. 56, C.
Art Institute of Chicago, Annual Report: 1979-80 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1980), p. 31 (ill.).
John Griffiths Pedley, “Greek Art” in Museum Studies: Ancient Art at The Art Institute of Chicago 20, no. 1 (1994), pp. 40-41 (ill.).
J.M. Padget, ed., The Centaur’s Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art (New haven: Yale University Press, 2003) 246-8, no. 57.
Emma Aston, Mixanthropoi, Animal-Human Hybrid Deities in Greek Religion (Liège: Centre International d’Étude de la Religion Grecque Antique, 2011), p. 289, fig. 38.
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 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 - October 2003; May 2004- July 2009; September 2009- February 6, 2012.
Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Art Museum, The Centaur’s Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art, October 11, 2003 – January 18, 2004; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, February 22, 2004– May 16, 2004.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Case for Wine: From King Tut to Today, Regenstein Hall, July 11 – September 20, 2009.
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 - June 30, 2015; February 23, 2016 - present.

Private Collection, Switzerland, by 1962 [this and the following according to correspondence with Dietrich von Bothmer dated July 7, 1980, copy in curatorial object file]; Elie Borowski (1913–2003), Toronto, Quebec and Basel, Switzerland, by 1974; Merrill C. Rueppel (1925– 2011), Needham, MA, September 1977 [according to incoming object receipt and correspondence in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1980.

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.

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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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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.