Red-Figure Ram-Head Rhyton (Drinking Vessel): Symposiasts; Satyr and Maenad (c. 480–470 BCE): Art, History and Details

Red-Figure Ram-Head Rhyton (Drinking Vessel): Symposiasts; Satyr and Maenad (c. 480–470 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Brygos Painter (Greek, Attic, active c. 490–470 BCE).

The work and its context

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

Although now missing nearly half of its mold-made ram’s head, this rhyton, a kind of drinking horn, retains most of its painted red-figure sections. On the wheel-made bowl above, three symposiasts recline at a drinking party: a youth wearing a kidaris (flapped Scythian hat) and two bearded men holding drinking cups. The youth plays the pipes, while a lyre hangs nearby and one man throws his head back in song. The letters around them, which do not spell out known words, may allude to the music in the air. Flanking the handle are a pipe-playing satyr and a dancing maenad (only partially preserved).

Object facts

• Title: Red-Figure Ram-Head Rhyton (Drinking Vessel): Symposiasts; Satyr and Maenad
• Date: c. 480–470 BCE
• Creator attribution: Brygos Painter (Greek, Attic, active c. 490–470 BCE)
• Culture: Greek, Attic
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: ceramic
• Dimensions: Overall: 19 x 12.8 cm (7 1/2 x 5 1/16 in.); Diameter of rim: 11.4 cm (4 1/2 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1988.8

A detail from the museum

This vessel once had a foot, but only a bit of its stem remains.

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.
• Guy, Robert. "A Ram's Head Rhyton Signed by Charinos," Arts in Virginia 21.2 (1981): 2-15.
• J. Paul Getty Museum. Greek vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Malibu, Calif: The Museum, 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.