Attic red-figure kylix by the Antiphon Painter

The decoration on this exquisite wine cup (kylix) is attributed to the Antiphon Painter, a major cup painter of the Late Archaic Period. The Antiphon Painter's style features oversized heads, curly hair with heavy, scalloped edges, a black broken line that divides the torso, muscles rendered with great delicacy in a diluted glaze, and the use of relief lines. The festive drinking party (symposium), and the revel (komos), well-known aspects of life in Athenian male society, are illustrated. Displays of excess and exhilaration are conveyed by a dancing youth holding a staff, a drunken, bearded reveler clasping his head while vomiting, and another supporting himself precariously on his staff. Various receptacles associated with wine are depicted: an open bowl for mixing wine and water, a deep cup held by a youth, and a wine pourer. The inscriptions read: kalos (handsome) above the staff of the vomiting man and on the krater; the word telos (the end) beside the drunken man, which seems to refer to his empty cup or to the fact that the participants are in the final stage of a drunken revel. Kalos also appears in an inscription in the interior of the vessel praising the beauty of a contemporary Athenian aristocrat named Aristarchos.