J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 44.

1973.05

Attic Black-Glaze Cup

Cyril Henry Leach Bequest, by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum. Ht 9.6 - 9.9cm; diam. 17cm.

Both handles are missing and part of the foot. The foot has been broken away at the stem and rejoined; the area of the join has been repainted. Fairly lustrous black glaze with a metallic sheen in some areas. There was possibly a reserved band on the upper part of the stem. An incised groove separates the fillet from the bowl. The resting surface is reserved and there is a band of black immediately within the stem.

The cup seems to belong to the variety called by Beazley Vicup: cf. H. Bloesch, Formen attischer Schalen von Exekias bis zum Ende des strengen Stils (Berne 1940) 139-141 and B.A. Sparkes and L. Talcott, The Athenian Agora xii: Black and Plain Pottery (Princeton 1970) 92-96.

Towards the middle of the fifth century BC.

Cups and mugs with offset lip were popular in Greece from Geometric times on, possibly because of the impurities that were no doubt common in the wine. Compare in this collection the Geometric skyphos (1967.01) or the black-figure lip cup (1965.15). Such black-glazed cups as this, both with and without stem, were common everyday drinking vessels in fifth-century Athens on the evidence both of finds and of representations in scenes on pottery. Contrast the black-figure examples described elsewhere in this catalogue.

J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 44.