Detail of a Cup in the Shape of a Donkey's Head by the Brygos Painter in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, June 2010

Cup in the shape of a donkey's head

Greek, Late Archaic Period, about 480 B.C.

the Brygos Painter

Place of Manufacture: Athens, Attica, Greece

Dimensions: Length: 25.4 cm (10 in.) Diameter: 12 cm. (4 3/4 in)

Medium or Technique: Ceramic, Red Figure

Classification: Vessels

Catalogue Raisonné: Caskey-Beazley, Attic Vase Paintings (MFA), no. 022.

Accession Number: 03.787

This cup mimics the shape of a drinking horn; the body of the vessel is formed in the shape of a bridled mule's head. Above the head the vessel also incorporates the flare of a typical drinking cup. Because it has no base, the liquid must be thoroughly imbibed before it can be set down. The mule wears a bridle. On one side of the cup flare, a satyr wearing a leopard skin runs by a drinking horn. On the front of the cup, another satyr crouches, waiting to ambush the maenad running towards him on the other side: his leopard skin billowing out behind him. The maenad (a female devotee of the wine-god Dionysus) runs away from the first satyr, brandishing her thyrsus (a fennel stalk). She also wears a leopard skin.

Condition: Cracks repaired. Added white paint on the mule's snout is chipped.


Text from: www.mfa.org/collections/object/cup-in-the-shape-of-a-donk...