Pelike (Storage Jar) (about 510-500 BCE): Artwork and History

Pelike (Storage Jar) (about 510-500 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:

This ancient storage vessel is decorated in the black-figure technique, which was developed in Corinth and used widely during the Archaic period (700–480 BCE). Gloss, a slip made from refined clay, was applied to all areas intended to be black. For the figural scene the silhouettes of the figures and other elements were painted in gloss, sometimes following the lines of a preliminary sketch scratched into the surface. Using a sharp tool, the artist created details by incising through the gloss to the light clay ground below. Colors such as purple-red and white, made from a gloss with mineral pigments, were then added. After a three-stage firing process applying alternately less and more oxygen, the gloss turned black. In its finest form, it was quite shiny. On this vessel, those techniques are used by the artist to create lively scenes in which a woman dances playfully with a drape of fabric, perhaps her cloak. Male musicians accompany her with Greek instruments including a Barbiton (the string instrument which looks like a small harp) and an aulos (the wind instrument shaped like a doubled flute). The inquisitive dog adds to the sense of movement and rhythm within the scene.

Object facts

• Title: Pelike (Storage Jar)
• Date: about 510-500 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; Athens
• Place of origin: Greece
• Medium: terracotta, black-figure with applied paint
• Dimensions: H.: 34.9 cm (13 3/4 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1889.12

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.