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Drinking horn (rhyton) in the form of a deer's head

Greek, South Italian
Late Classical to Early Hellenistic Period
about 330–320 B.C.
Place of Manufacture: Italy, Apulia

Medium/Technique Ceramic, Red Figure
Dimensions Length: 25 cm (9 13/16 in.)
Credit Line John Michael Rodocanachi Fund
Accession Number63.472
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsVessels

Catalogue Raisonné Vase-Painting in Italy (MFA), no. 064.
DescriptionOn the front of the neck, Eros flies to the right with a yellow mirror in his extended right hand, a tympanum in his lowered left hand, and a fan, with yellow handle and white feathers, lying across his middle. He wears a kekryphalos, shoes, earrings, bracelets, a beaded thigh band on his right leg, anklets, and a beaded bandoleer across his chest, all in added white. There is a white ivy leaf in the field below. There is a wave-pattern under the rim; large palmettes, linked and enclosed by tendrils, flank the handle at the rear.
The deer's eyes are white, with yellow irises outlined and centered with red-orange. The horns are white with red-orange striations. Traces of white remain in the nostrils and ears.
For rhyta, see comments on catalogue no. 31.
(text from Vase-Painting In Italy, catalogue entry no. 64)
ProvenanceIn the 1920s: probably in the Paul Gottschalk Collection (according to a letter from Biblion in 2000 concerning the provenance of this vase); by about 1961: with Biblion, Inc., Booksellers, P.O. Box 197, Forest Hills 75, New York; purchased by MFA from Biblion, Inc., Booksellers, May 8, 1963