Red-Figure Cow-Head Rhyton (Drinking Horn): Seated Woman (c. 340 BCE): Art, History and Details

Red-Figure Cow-Head Rhyton (Drinking Horn): Seated Woman (c. 340 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Rhyta (drinking horns) in the forms of animal heads were popular ceramic products in Apulia c. 350-320 BC. Mold-made heads were attached to wheel-made bowls, with separately made handles (plus ears and horns, for this cow). On the bowl, a seated woman holds a helmet and spear, with a shield nearby; she may represent Athena, although the helmet differs from her usual type and she does not appear to wear her snaky aegis (breastplate).

Object facts

• Title: Red-Figure Cow-Head Rhyton (Drinking Horn): Seated Woman
• Date: c. 340 BCE
• Culture: South Italian, Apulian, Tarentine
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Diameter: 10 cm (3 15/16 in.); Overall: 17 cm (6 11/16 in.)
• Collection: GR - South Italy
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1982.41

A detail from the museum

The cow-head rhyton was the most popular of all Apulian animal-head rhyta.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• André Emmerich Gallery. Classical Antiquities. New York: André Emmerich Gallery, Inc, 1981.
• Boger, Ann C. Consuming Passions: The Art of Food and Drink : [Exhibition] the Cleveland Museum of Art, July 26-October 9, 1983. [Cleveland]: Extensions Division, Dept. of Art History and Education, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1983.

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.