Black-Figure Kotyle (Drinking Cup): Animal Friezes (600s–500s BCE, with modern painting and incision): Art, History and Details

Black-Figure Kotyle (Drinking Cup): Animal Friezes (600s–500s BCE, with modern painting and incision) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Shoe Lane Painter (Greek, early-mid 1900s).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This vessel began as an authentic drinking cup in the ancient Greek city of Corinth. Originally bearing no figural decoration, it was given new handles and animal friezes in a style recalling that of ancient Corinthian artists. The modern decorator was prolific enough that scholars have recognized their hand, coining the name “Shoe Lane Painter” after a street in Athens where many such vases were sold.

Object facts

• Title: Black-Figure Kotyle (Drinking Cup): Animal Friezes
• Date: 600s–500s BCE, with modern painting and incision
• Creator attribution: Shoe Lane Painter (Greek, early-mid 1900s)
• Culture: Greek, Corinthian
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 7.3 cm (2 7/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1924.873

A detail from the museum

Although the body of this cup is ancient, its handles and figural decoration are modern.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• R. H. “A Note on Greek Design: Recent Accessions of Pottery.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 11, no. 10 (December 1924): 198–199.
• Amyx, Darrell A. Corinthian Vase-Painting of the Archaic Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.