Hydria with Aphrodite and Eros

AAT Object Form/Functionhydriae

AAT Object Form/Functionfigures (representations)

CultureGreek

PeriodClassical

Datesecond quarter of the 4th Century BCE

MediumBronze

Credit LineCarlos Collection of Ancient Art

Dimensions18 7/8 x 15 3/4 x 13 in. (47.9 x 40 x 33 cm)

Object number2001.012.001

Label TextThe hydria, as its name implies (compare our word "hydrate"), was used to fetch water from the well, a task entrusted to women. Two lateral handles enabled lifting; the vertical one, pouring. The austere appearance conceals the complexity of the vessel's manufacture: the body was hammered from sheet metal, the handles and foot cast from nine pieces, and the plaque below the vertical handle hammered from both sides (repousse) for sharp definition. Metallurgical analysis has revealed significantly higher lead content in the cast elements (in order to make the molten metal flow into the mold) than in the hammered (where crispness and strength rather than fluidity was important). The parts were assembled using lead solder.

The plaque below the pouring handle shows Aphrodite with her arm over the shoulder of her son, Eros. She adjusts her veil in a bridal gesture. Since her husband in mythology was Hephaistos, the god of smiths and metalworkers, this scene may be read as a symbolic celebration of love.

During recent conservation, crystallized scraps of a funeral shroud for the ashes of the deceased were identified inside the vessel perhaps indicating that the vessel was created as a bride's dowry, and later consigned to a grave.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2004 - January 2011
Monsters, Demons & Winged Beasts: Composite Creatures in the Ancient World, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 5 - June 19, 2011
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, June 20, 2011 - Present
Published ReferencesMCCM Newsletter, March - May 2002.
MCCM Newsletter, September - November 2003.
Jennifer Chi and Jasper Gaunt, Greek Bronze Vessels from the Collection of Shelby White & Leon Levy (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2005), 22-23, catalogue 8.
Jasper Gaunt, Renee Stein, Kate Duffy, and Lindsay Turk, "Stylistic and Technical Study of a Bronze Hydria in the Michael C. Carlos Museum," in Common Ground: Archaeology, Art, Science, and Humanities. Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Boston, August 23-26, 2003, ed Carol C. Mattusch et al. (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2006), 363-67.
Louise Pratt, Eros at the Banquet: Reviewing Greek with Plato's Symposium (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), 6-7.

ProvenanceEx coll. Doris Seebacher, Munich, Germany. Purchased by MCCM from Robert Hecht (1919-2012) [Robert Hecht Gallery], New York, New York.

Status

On view

Collections