Amphoriskos (Container for Oil) (600-575 BCE): Artwork and History

Amphoriskos (Container for Oil) (600-575 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek; Corinth.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Located on the narrow isthmus that joins the Greek mainland and the Peloponnese, with natural harbors facing east and west, Corinth was the major port of trade in Greece for most of the Archaic period (700–480 BCE). Producers exported scented oil around the Mediterranean in terracotta containers like this one known as an amphoriskos, literally a "little amphora," that survive today in the thousands.

Object facts

• Title: Amphoriskos (Container for Oil)
• Date: 600-575 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; Corinth
• Place of origin: Corinth
• Medium: terracotta, black-figure
• Dimensions: 16.5 × 8.4 cm (6 1/2 × 3 1/4 in.); Diam.: 8.4 cm (3 1/4 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1892.124

Collection credit

Gift of 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.