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Oil Container (Aryballos) with Sphinxes and Swans

Oil Container (Aryballos) with Sphinxes and Swans

Unknown

The Protocorinthian, or orientalizing, style used floral or vegetal designs with a mixture of real (swans) and mythic (sphinxes) animals. It lasted for about a century from around 725 to about 625 B.C. before giving way to the mature Corinthian style. A popular shape for this phase was the aryballos, a small flask with narrow neck and flat lip used to store and pour oil.
Artist
Unknown (Greek, Proto-Corinthian)
Title
Oil Container (Aryballos) with Sphinxes and Swans
Date
ca. 600 B.C.E.
Medium
Earthenware with black-figure decoration
Dimensions
2 9/16 x 2 9/16 in. Overall
Credit
Art Collections Fund and Ottilia Buerger Fund purchase
Accession No.
1978.1
Classification
Ceramics
Geography
Greece

Related

30 January 1978, sold by Bruce and Ingrid McAlpine Ancient Art (London, England) to the Elvehjem Art Center [now called Chazen Museum of Art]

  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "Ancient Etruscan and Greek Vases in the Elvehjem Museum of Art." University of Wisconsin Regents. Madison, Wis., 2000. p. 38, no. 18

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