Amphora (Storage Jar) (340-330 BCE): Artwork and History

Amphora (Storage Jar) (340-330 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Attributed to the Ixion Painter Greek; Campania, Italy.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

One of the first objects to enter the Art Institute’s collection, this amphora represents changes in conservation practices across different centuries. Before it was acquired by the museum in the 19th century, the vessel had broken and been repaired. The staples that hold the foot together are from this early restoration. Some fragments were missing, including important parts of the figural scene depicting the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. Because filling in these areas would require imaginative reconstruction, these areas of loss were not restored. The lower decorative band, a uniform key pattern, was restored. 20th-century restoration with matte black plaster indicates areas of loss in the band. The fragments of this amphora were reassembled in an earlier century using pieces of other ceramic vessels, but this amphora was left intact by conservators.

Object facts

• Title: Amphora (Storage Jar)
• Date: 340-330 BCE
• Artist attribution: Attributed to the Ixion Painter Greek; Campania, Italy
• Place of origin: Campania
• Medium: terracotta, red-figure
• Dimensions: 86.4 × 36.1 × 26 cm (34 1/2 × 14 1/4 × 10 1/4 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1889.24

Collection credit

Gift of Philip D. Armour and Charles L. Hutchinson

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.