Siren-Shaped Perfume Flask (600–480 BCE): Art, History and Details

Siren-Shaped Perfume Flask (600–480 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

A half-bird, half-woman creature, a siren lured sailors to death by the sweetness of her song. The most famous sirens appear in the ancient epic the Odyssey. Shaped like a siren, this vessel likely held valuable perfumed oil. Its small mouth limited spillage, and a string attached to the loops on its back allowed it to hand or hold a stopper.

Object facts

• Title: Siren-Shaped Perfume Flask
• Date: 600–480 BCE
• Culture: Greece
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: terracotta
• Dimensions: Overall: 12.7 x 18.1 x 6.7 cm (5 x 7 1/8 x 2 5/8 in.)
• Collection: GR - Greek
• Department: Greek and Roman Art
• Accession number: 1928.193

A detail from the museum

In the Odyssey, Odysseus’s crew escapes the sirens by plugging their ears with wax.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cooney, John D. “Siren and Ba, Birds of a Feather.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 55, no. 8 (October 1968): 262–271.

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.