An Attic bilingual eye cup
Circa 525-510 B.C.
Each side of the exterior with two large apotropaic eyes framed by palmettes, the interior tondo with a young male walking to his left, holding a spotted fabric in his right hand that drapes over his left shoulder, holding a sybene in his left hand, details incised and in added red and white, 38.5cm wide including handles
Footnotes:
Provenance:
French private collection acquired from Galerie Archeologie Borowski, Paris in 1978.

Bilingual vessels, such as this example, were made for a short period of time at the end of the 6th Century B.C. They are called 'bilingual' as they employ both red and black figure techniques on the same vessel. When the technique was used to paint eye cups it was common for the exteriors to be painted in red-figure, with the interior tondos to be painted in black-figure.