Monkey-Shaped Aryballos (Oil Vessel) (c. 580 BCE): Art, History and Details

Monkey-Shaped Aryballos (Oil Vessel) (c. 580 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Perfume flasks in the form of a monkey are numerous, but few are as well made and preserved as this one. The flask was worn suspended from the wrist by a cord. Its owner would take it to the communal baths and anoint himself with its contents afterward. Such flasks have been found throughout the Mediterranean and Egypt, but this vessel was likely made at a Greek settlement on the west coast of Asia Minor.

Object facts

• Title: Monkey-Shaped Aryballos (Oil Vessel)
• Date: c. 580 BCE
• Culture: East Greek, probably Milesian
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Diameter of mouth: 2 cm (13/16 in.); Overall: 9 cm (3 9/16 in.); Diameter of base: 3.7 cm (1 7/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1991.50

A detail from the museum

An aryballos is a small jar for scented oils and perfumes.

Collection credit

Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of Dr. Leo Mildenberg in honor of Arielle P. Kozloff

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• Ducat, Jean. Les Vases plastiques rhodiens archaïques en terre cuite. Paris: F., de Boccard, 1966.
• André Emmerich Gallery. Classical Art from a New York Collection: An Exhibition of Ancient Bronzes, Figurative Plastic Vases and Other Ancient Works of Art, Organized in Cooperation with Münzen Und Medaillen AG, Basle, Switzerland, September 27-November 16, 1977. New York: André Emmerich Gallery, 1977.

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.