Aryballos (Cointainer for Oil) (625-600 BCE): Artwork and History

Aryballos (Cointainer for Oil) (625-600 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 (700–480BC). Producers exported scented oil around the Mediterranean in terra-cotta containers, such as this aryballos, that survive today in the thousands.

Object facts

• Title: Aryballos (Cointainer for Oil)
• Date: 625-600 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; Corinth
• Place of origin: Ancient Greece
• Medium: terracotta, black-figure
• Dimensions: 7 × 6.4 × 6.4 cm (2 3/4 × 2 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1956.1244

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Edwin Brand

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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.