Kottabos Element of a Dancing Satyr (470–450 BCE): Art, History and Details

Kottabos Element of a Dancing Satyr (470–450 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This diminutive dancing satyr, identifiable by his snub nose and equine ears (though without a tail), lifts his leg and reaches with an upstretched arm toward a dish, now lost. The disc and cylinder on which he stands likely rested atop a much taller post, with a larger disc or dish below, as preserved in more complete examples and illustrated on numerous ancient vases. In the drinking game kottabos, known by its Greek name but also popular in Etruria, the goal was to knock a dish off its precarious perch, in this case the hand of the dancing satyr, using only the wine dregs in your cup.

Object facts

• Title: Kottabos Element of a Dancing Satyr
• Date: 470–450 BCE
• Culture: Etruscan
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 15 cm (5 7/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Etruscan
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1974.16

A detail from the museum

This lively object was likely used to play a drinking game called kottabos.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cooney, John D. “Way Stations on the Primrose Path.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 7 (1974).
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1991.

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.