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View: Right side
Cup in the shape of a donkey's head
Greek
Late Archaic Period
about 480 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Greece, Attica, Athens
Medium/Technique
Ceramic, Red Figure
Dimensions
Length: 25.4 cm (10 in.)
Diameter: 12 cm. (4 3/4 in)
Diameter: 12 cm. (4 3/4 in)
Credit Line
Bartlett Collection—Museum purchase with funds from the Francis Bartlett Donation of 1900
Accession Number03.787
CollectionsAncient Greece and Rome
ClassificationsVessels
Catalogue Raisonné
Caskey-Beazley, Attic Vase Paintings (MFA), no. 022.
DescriptionThis cup mimics the shape of a drinking horn; the body of the vessel is formed in the shape of a bridled mule's head. Above the head the vessel also incorporates the flare of a typical drinking cup. Because it has no base, the liquid must be thoroughly imbibed before it can be set down. The mule wears a bridle. On one side of the cup flare, a satyr wearing a leopard skin runs by a drinking horn. On the front of the cup, another satyr crouches, waiting to ambush the maenad running towards him on the other side: his leopard skin billowing out behind him. The maenad (a female devotee of the wine-god Dionysus) runs away from the first satyr, brandishing her thyrsus (a fennel stalk). She also wears a leopard skin.
Condition: Cracks repaired. Added white paint on the mule's snout is chipped.
Condition: Cracks repaired. Added white paint on the mule's snout is chipped.
ProvenanceBy 1903, purchased in London by Edward Perry Warren (b. 1860 - d. 1928), London [see note]; 1903, sold by Edward Perry Warren to the MFA. (Accession Date: March 24, 1903), p. 35, note 41.
NOTE: According to Warren's records, from an "old collection."
NOTE: According to Warren's records, from an "old collection."