Mastoid (Drinking Cup) with Handles (500-480 BCE): Artwork and History

Mastoid (Drinking Cup) with Handles (500-480 BCE) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Attributed to the Manner of the Haimon Painter Greek; Athens.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This handled cup was likely used as part of the Greek symposium. Much like modern academic symposiums, in which people discuss a topic of common interest, debunking old theories and putting forth new hypotheses; the men of ancient Athens regularly got together in private homes to exchange ideas. Afterward the participants might continue the conversation, discussing their impressions in greater detail or simply socializing over a drink. As the evening progressed, participants engaged in other pleasures, including games, performances, and sex. Wine played a major role in fueling these evenings, and as such the myriad vessels used in the symposium often paid homage to drink. Here Dionysos, the god of wine and theater, is shown riding a donkey who's exaggerated physical arousal would have appealed to the ancient Greeks' often bawdy sense of humor. The god is accompanied by his female companions, known as maenads, who were notorious for the kind of ecstatic, freewheeling dances they perform here.

Object facts

• Title: Mastoid (Drinking Cup) with Handles
• Date: 500-480 BCE
• Artist attribution: Attributed to the Manner of the Haimon Painter Greek; Athens
• Place of origin: Athens
• Medium: terracotta, black-figure
• Dimensions: 9.5 × 16.5 × 10.1 cm (3 3/4 × 6 1/2 × 4 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1889.20

Collection credit

Gift of Philip D. Armour and Charles L. Hutchinson

View the original

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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.