An Attic black-figure eye-cup

Footnotes

Provenance:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv.no.GR554.
Cypriote & Classical Antiquities, Duplicates of the Cesnola & Other Collections, Sold by the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum; The Anderson Galleries, New York, 30-31 March 1928, lot 391.
Acquired by The Toledo Museum of Art from the above, acc.no 28.168.
Property from the Toledo Museum of Art, Sold to Benefit the Acquisitions Fund; Christie's, New York, 25 October 2016, lot 19.
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale.
Beazley Archive no. 331795.

Published:
J.D. Beazley, Attic Black-figure Vase-painters, Oxford, 1956, p.634, no.26, p.713.
C.G. Boulter and K.T. Luckner, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: The Toledo Museum of Art, Fasc. 1, Toledo, 1976, pp.26-27, no.28.168, pls.38.3, 39.2, 40.2.
T.H. Carpenter, with T. Mannack and M. Mendonca, Beazley Addenda, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1989, p.145.

The motif of large, stylised eyes on the exterior of Attic cups first appeared c. 540-530 B.C., potentially due to East Greek or Egyptian influence. Their significance is often attributed to their having an apotropaic effect, protecting the drinker from harm. This example is one of the many eye-cups which depict a Dionysiac theme: on each side, a satyr rides a donkey between the eyes, while two satyrs flank the eyes, one of which holds a rhyton. Another satyr dances merrily in the tondo. This Dionysiac imagery was suited not only to the revelry of the sympotic contexts in which such drinking vessels were used, highlighted again by the grape vines bordering the scene, but also to the shape of the cup itself. When the drinker lifted the cup to their mouth, the vessel would cover his face and mask him with enormous eyes – to great theatrical, and indeed comedic, effect. This potential interplay of Dionysus as god of wine and god of theatre becomes even more appealing when we consider that the earliest evidence for masks being used in the theatre was by Thespis, the first 'actor', in 534 B.C.; just around when the earliest eye-cups were being produced. It might well be inferred that putting on a show was just as essential in the symposium as it was in the theatre.

For a very similar example, see A.-B. Follmann, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum, Hanover, Fasc. 1, 1971, p.40, no.R.1906, 163.