Lekanis (Covered Dish) (450-430 BCE): Artwork and History

Lekanis (Covered Dish) (450-430 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Greek; Athens.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The shape of this lekanis—a low, lidded bowl resting on a broad foot with ribbon-like handles projecting from its sides—is typical, but its large size and lack of figural decoration are unusual. Frequently this type of vessel was decorated with marriage scenes, but this example is almost entirely covered with shiny black gloss, except for a horizontal band of vertical zigzags on the bowl and a band of rays at the base of the bowl and on the lid. Several thin, dark-red bands also encircle the vessel.

Object facts

• Title: Lekanis (Covered Dish)
• Date: 450-430 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; Athens
• Place of origin: Greece
• Medium: terracotta, black-glaze
• Dimensions: 22.2 × 48.3 × 36.8 cm (8 3/4 × 19 × 14 1/2 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1889.99a-b

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.