Cow Terracotta Rhyton in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2008

Terracotta Rhyton (vase for libations or drinking)
Greek, Attic, red-figure, ca. 460 BC
Attributed to the Cow Head Group
Youths and women

Accession # 06.1021.203

The molded, figural part of the vase is in the shape of a cow's head. The meaning of these plastic vases is difficult to grasp. To some degree, the animal forms hark back to prototypes that came to Greece from the East. By the classical period, however, the criteria for selection probably included novelty and, it would seem, a contrast to the usual surroundings of an urban, Athenian symposiast (participant in a drinking party).

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.