The shape of this small cup corresponds with that of the kotyle, a drinking vessel of Corinthian origin, often also called a skyphos. The semi-spherical body sits on a small disc base: two horizontal upturned handles, similar to those on Attic cups, are attached at the center of the body; the lip is rounded.

The vase is decorated in black figure, with some details incised and others in added red: On the obverse, the is a man running to the right. Behind him are objects which can been identified as a shield and set of greaves, suggesting that the man is a hoplite. On the reverse, two palmettes surround a gorgon mask. According to archaic iconography, the gorgon is meant to be frightening, with a large round face, large open mouth with fangs bared, bulging eyes, and hair and chin are bordered by a row of snakes. One non-canonical aspect of this gorgon is its large ears, which are not common.

In Greek mythology, the gorgons were hideous sisters, who embodied the most terrifying aspects of the supernatural and death: during the archaic period, their circular faces – the gorgoneion – was almost always depicted head on. The gorgoneion appears throughout archaic Greek art: on the pediments of temples, on armor (as shield devices), on funerary stelai, and also on objects from everyday life: on metal or terracotta vessels, on furniture, etc. Their function is apotropaic and protective, since the gorgon (or a gorgon mask) was supposed to drive away evil forces and turn them against the enemies of whomever possessed its image.

Medusa, the only mortal Gorgon, is the best known of the three sisters because of her role in the myth of Perseus. After having decapitated the monster, Perseus gave his patron, Athena, the head of Medusa, which had the power to turn men to stone; from then on, Medusa’s face decorated the center of Athena’s aegis.

The decoration of this skyphos most closely ressembles the black-figure productions of Boeotia. This region, on the periphery of the Greek artistic world, continued to produce black-figure long after it went out of fashion in Attica.

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