Pyxis (Container for Personal Objects) (430-420 BCE): Artwork and History

Pyxis (Container for Personal Objects) (430-420 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:

Nine women are depicted in the figured scene that runs right around the vase. The women are presumably in the gynaikeion or women's quarters, and include a seated woman with a book roll, a woman holding wreath, a woman with a mirror, a woman with an alabastron, a woman with a sash, a woman with a lyre, a woman with a mirror, a girl standing stiff and straight to the right, who might be the bride-to-be, and a woman with an alabastron. Vessels of this type were probably used to hold personal effects like cosmetics, jewelry, or other trinkets and were often given as wedding gifts.

Object facts

• Title: Pyxis (Container for Personal Objects)
• Date: 430-420 BCE
• Artist attribution: Greek; Athens
• Place of origin: Athens
• Medium: terracotta, red-figure
• Dimensions: 13.3 × 10.5 cm (5 1/4 × 4 1/8 in.); Diam.: 10.5 cm (4 1/8 in.)
• Type: Vessel
• Department: Arts of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium
• Reference number: 1892.126a-b

Collection credit

Gift of 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.