Red-Figure Eye Cup: Warriors (A), Musician and Youths (B) (c. 520 BCE): Art, History and Details

Red-Figure Eye Cup: Warriors (A), Musician and Youths (B) (c. 520 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Psiax (Greek, Attic, active c. 525–505 BCE); Group of Leipzig T 3599.

The work and its context

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

Red-figure eye cups, like their more common black-figure brethren (including one in Cleveland), feature two large eyes on either side, producing a masking effect for drinkers. Typically, palmettes flank the eyes, with either a nose or figure at center. Here, the innovative painter Psiax, who worked in both black-figure and red-figure, moved the palmettes to the tondo and created three-figure compositions on each exterior side: two warriors converging on a fallen comrade (or enemy); and a youth playing a cithara for an audience of two. The experimental nature of early red-figure may explain the unusual spear and awkwardly twisted torso and lower leg of the central warrior.

Object facts

• Title: Red-Figure Eye Cup: Warriors (A), Musician and Youths (B)
• Date: c. 520 BCE
• Creator attribution: Psiax (Greek, Attic, active c. 525–505 BCE); Group of Leipzig T 3599
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Diameter of tondo: 6.4 cm (2 1/2 in.); Overall: 11.2 x 33.6 cm (4 7/16 x 13 1/4 in.); Diameter of rim: 26 cm (10 1/4 in.); Diameter of foot: 10.2 cm (4 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1976.89

A detail from the museum

The fallen warrior’s spear is done with added clay (shaft) and incision (head), not red-figure.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• Arias, Paolo Enrico. Storia della ceramica di età arcaica, classica e ellenistica e della pittura di età arcaica e classica. Torino: Società editrice internazionale, 1963.
• Beazley, J. D. Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.

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.