Red-Figure Column Krater (Mixing Vessel): Komos (Revel) (c. 470–460 BCE): Art, History and Details

Red-Figure Column Krater (Mixing Vessel): Komos (Revel) (c. 470–460 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pig Painter (Greek, Attic, active c. 480–460 BCE).

The work and its context

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

Used for mixing wine and water at a symposium (drinking party), this vase bears images of komasts, or revelers, potentially mirroring the actions of its users. The three bearded men on side A stand out for their earrings, long drapery, and Eastern-style headdresses, and for the parasol held by one. Similar features have been noticed on numerous other red-figure vases, now called “Anakreontic” by scholars. This name refers to Anakreon, a 6th-century BC lyric poet from East Greece sometimes credited with inventing the barbitos, the long-stringed lyre played by the central figure on side A. The youths on side B, one draped, two nude and dancing, are less unusual.

Object facts

• Title: Red-Figure Column Krater (Mixing Vessel): Komos (Revel)
• Date: c. 470–460 BCE
• Creator attribution: Pig Painter (Greek, Attic, active c. 480–460 BCE)
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Diameter: 40.6 cm (16 in.); Overall: 42.5 cm (16 3/4 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1926.549

A detail from the museum

These three bearded men wear earrings and Eastern-style headdresses—unusual features in fifth-century BC Athens.

Collection credit

The A. W. Ellenberger, Sr., Endowment Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1928.
• Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, First Edition. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1942.

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.