Dionysus Cup

It is one of the masterpieces of the Attic black-figure potter Exekias and one of the most significant works in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich.

The sail, unlike the rest of the image, is painted white, a common stylistic element in the black figure style.

Most common is the suggestion that is a reference to the seventh Homeric Hymn, in which it is explained how Dionysus was kidnapped by Etruscan pirates, who were unaware of his identity.

Neither did the tondo nearly completely filling the inside of the cup, which was notably imitated later on by the Penthesilea Painter, but is otherwise rather uncommon.

Hitherto it had been common in general for the interior of a cup to be decorated with a small tondo depicting a gorgoneion.

Inside of the cup, the decoration has no horizon line or specific orientation other than the ship and the grapes.

[4] It is known that Exekias was the potter, since he signed the foot with an inscription reading EΞΣΕΚΙΑΣ ΕΠΟΕΣΕ ("Exsekias made this").

The cup was found during Lucien Bonaparte's excavations at Vulci and acquired for Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1841.