Kylix with a Symposion Scene

Artist, attributed to: Gales Painter (Greek, Attic, active ca. 530–ca. 500. B.C.)

ca. 520–510 B.C.

Ancient Art

On view, 1st floor, Ancient Art

The symposion, a mainstay of Greek culture with its origins in the deepest past, served an important social function for men. Reclining diners told stories, talked politics, celebrated victories, and forged relationships. Inspired by Dionysos, the god of wine, such gatherings could easily, and often did, descend into drunken, bawdy revelry. The women in attendance were not respectable matrons of good households, but rather hetairai—professional entertainers and courtesans.

Medium

Terracotta, red-figure with added red

Dimensions

3 5/8 × 8 3/4 × 8 7/8 in. (9.2 × 22.3 × 22.5 cm)
Foot: 3 13/16 in. (9.7 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Rebecca Darlington Stoddard

Accession Number

1913.163

Culture

Greek, Attic

Period

Late Archaic

Classification

Containers

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
From Vulci (Beazley); ex. coll. Dr. Paul Arndt, Munich. Purchased for Yale University by Rebecca Darlington Stoddard, 1913
Bibliography
  • "A Possible Egyptian Broad Collar on a Yale Kylix," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2013), 126–27, fig. 1
  • Susan B. Matheson, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Yale University Art Gallery I (Mainz, Germany: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2011), 52–53, no. 48, pl. 56, fig. 48
  • Gerhild Kastrun, "Antike Liebeslust," UNIZEIT 3 (October 2010), 16, ill.
  • Kelly Wrenhaven, "The Identity of the Wool-Workers in the Attic Manumissons," Hesperia 78 (2009), 377, fig. 4
  • Sheramy Bundrick, Music and Image in Classical Athens (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 38–39, fig. 24
  • Ellen D. Reeder, Pandora: Women in Classical Greece, exh. cat. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), 190–92, ill.
  • John M. Riddle, J. Estes, and J. Russell, "Ever Since Eve. . . Birth Control in the Ancient World," Archaeology 47, no. 4 (1994), Cover, ill.
  • Martin F. Kilmer, Greek Erotica on Attic Red-Figure Vases (London: Duckworth, 1993), 42–43, 240, no. R82, ill.
  • Elise K. Kenney, ed., Handbook of the Collections: Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1992), 262, ill.
  • Beazley Addenda: Additional References to ABV, ARV2 and Paralipomena, 2nd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 158
  • Kenneth James Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 86, 94, 118, fig. R82
  • Lacey Davis Caskey and Sir John Davidson Beazley, Attic Vase Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (London: Oxford University Press, 1931), 10–11
  • Leo Schidrowitz, Sittengeschichte Des Intimsten (Vienna: Verlag für Kulturforschung, 1929), 196, ill.
  • Hans Licht, Sittengeschichte Griechenlands: in zwei Bänden und einem. Ergänzungsband (Zurich: P. Aretz, 1925–1928), 47
  • Ernst Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (Munich: Friedrich Bruckmann, 1923), 429
  • Paul Victor Christopher Baur, Catalogue of the Rebecca Darlington Stoddard Collection of Greek and Italian Vases at Yale University, 1st ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1922), 108, no. 163, pl.15, fig. 36
  • Jay Hambidge, Dynamic Symmetry: The Greek Vase (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1920), 122, fig. 12
  • Paul Victor Christopher Baur, Preliminary Catalogue of the Rebecca Darlington Stoddard Collection of Greek and Italian Vases in Yale University (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 1914), 19, no. 165
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

figures (representations), kylikes, mythology, utilitarian objects

Inscriptions

In Greek, above the figures: "HO PAIS"; underneath the figures: "[K]ALOS"

Technical metadata and APIs

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