Red-Figure Janiform Kantharos (Two-Sided Head-Shaped Drinking Cup): Satyr and African (c. 470–460 BCE): Art, History and Details

Red-Figure Janiform Kantharos (Two-Sided Head-Shaped Drinking Cup): Satyr and African (c. 470–460 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Class K (The Toronto Class).

The work and its context

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

Combining two mold-made faces beneath a pair of vertical handles and a flaring, wheel-made lip, this unusual drinking cup is a variation of the kantharos, a vessel favored by the wine god Dionysos. A snub nose and equine ears identify the satyr, a relatively common type on such vessels. The glossy black face and red hair on the other side are more unusual, apparently meant to show an older African man, with white beard and eyebrows, and wrinkles around the eyes.

Object facts

• Title: Red-Figure Janiform Kantharos (Two-Sided Head-Shaped Drinking Cup): Satyr and African
• Date: c. 470–460 BCE
• Creator attribution: Class K (The Toronto Class)
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 19.6 x 17.2 cm (7 11/16 x 6 3/4 in.); Diameter of base: 8.5 cm (3 3/8 in.); Diameter of rim: 15.3 cm (6 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1979.69

A detail from the museum

This janiform kantharos is unique in juxtaposing heads of a satyr and an African man.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Beazley Archive. n.d. Beazley Archive Pottery Database. Oxford: Beazley Archive.
• Kozloff, Arielle P. "Companions of Dionysus." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 7 (1980): 207-19.
• "Annual Report for 1979." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 6 (1980).

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.